Lexical Skills Research Articles

The methodology of using linguistic materials in developing lexical skills in English language teaching

The methodology of using linguistic materials in developing lexical skills in English language teaching

Lexical skills in children with and without autism in the context of Arabic diglossia: Evidence from vocabulary and narrative tasks

ABSTRACT Arabic is characterized by diglossia, which involves the use of two language varieties within a single speech community: Spoken Arabic (SpA) for everyday speech and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) for formal speech and reading/writing. Earlier research suggests that some Arabic-speaking children with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might favor MSA over SpA in informal settings, unlike those with Typical Language Development (TLD). Research on typical and atypical lexical abilities within the diglossic context of Arabic is limited. This study investigated the manifestation of diglossia in the lexical skills of Palestinian-Arabic speaking children with and without ASD. A total of 57 Palestinian-Arabic speaking children aged 4-11 were evaluated, comprising three groups: TLD, ASD with language Impairment (LI) (ASD+LI), and ASD with normal language skills (ASD+NL). Two vocabulary tasks were used: comprehension and production of nouns and verbs that manipulated the lexico-phonological distance between SpA and MSA. Moreover, a LITMUS-MAIN narrative production task in SpA was administered to all children. The vocabulary comprehension and production tasks were coded for accuracy of response. The production tasks (vocabulary and narrative) were also coded using a special coding rubric according to which all words used were categorized as either SpA or MSA. No differences emerged between the TLD and ASD+NL groups in any vocabulary measure, yet lower scores were observed in the ASD+LI group. In production tasks, all groups utilized SpA more than MSA. Nonetheless, some children with ASD overused MSA lexis. These findings highlight the heterogeneity of lexical skills among children with ASD. The results further underscore the role of diglossia in Arabic in lexical abilities in autism, and thus call for thorough language assessment procedures across different domains.

Differentiated formation of lexical competence in speech among future philologists-orientalists

Relevance. The research is relevant because in the modern pedagogical discourse there is a need to introduce new methods and principles of work for the development of lexical skills and the formation of communicative competence.Purpose. The purpose of this work is to determine the key characteristics of the educational process using the example of the training of orientalist students, to study the specifics of the work on the development of lexical skills at different levels of training: low, medium and high in the speaking process.Methodology. Analytical-synthetic, comparative-comparative, the method of studying and summarizing pedagogical experience and questionnaires, which were used for complex and detailed analysis, were the main methods for writing this work.Results. In this study, an analysis of educational bachelor�s programs in Japanese, Korean, and Indonesian philology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv was carried out, the main forms of work oriented to different levels of students� knowledge were shown: low, medium, high. Attention is focused on the main methods of work, in particular, discussions, debates, problem tasks, modelling of dialogues, and lexical exercises are mentioned. The results obtained in the course of my own research were compared with the results of other researchers dealing with similar pedagogical topics. The results of a survey of students of 1-5 courses regarding the assessment of their level of lexical training and the effectiveness of the applied teaching methods are presented. The theoretical aspects of the concept of �lexical competence� and �differentiated learning� were also considered.Conclusions. This work can be used for the further development of the problem of differentiated education, in particular, the introduction of new methods, the integration of modern educational practices in order to develop lexical competence in the process of speaking.

Effects of lexical skills and orthographic neighborhood size in word memory

Two experiments were designed to investigate the relationship between individual lexical skills in young adults and memory performance on words varying by their orthographic neighborhood size. In Experiment 1, a sample of 100 university students were administrated a set of spelling, reading, and vocabulary tests to assess their lexical skills. Then, they had to learn mixed lists of words from high and low neighborhood size and perform free recall and memory recognition tasks. Importantly, high lexical skills were found to enhance free recall and, to a lesser extent, recognition. In addition, a typical mirror effect of neighborhood size was found in recognition as words were better recognized and also produced less false alarms when they had a low neighborhood size. In Experiment 2, pure lists of words were designed and a new sample of 90 university students was assessed. We replicated the effect of lexical skills in free recall and the effect of neighborhood size for hits in recognition. Spelling skills were found to interact with neighborhood size in free recall in that low spelling skills were associated with a facilitatory effect of neighborhood size. In recognition, a relation between reading skills and neighborhood size was found such that the higher the reading skills, the higher was the inhibitory effect of neighborhood size. These results provide new evidence of an influence of lexical skills in word memory performance and underline the role of orthographic neighborhood size in episodic memory tasks.

Russian paroemias as a means of activating grammatical and lexical skills in the process of teaching foreign students

Introduction. Currently, Russian paroemias are actively used in the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language in order to improve lessons, increase motivation to learn the language, illustrate typical situations of communication, activate cognitive and thinking abilities of foreign students. The purpose of the article is to describe the process of activating grammar and lexical skills of foreign students with the help of paroemias at different stages of learning. Research methods. In the course of the research we used: the method of directional sampling of material from paroemiological collections and dictionaries; methods of structural, semantic and contextual analysis of proverbs and sayings. Results. Paroemias reflect the folk wisdom, mentality, world outlook, life experience, notions of the surrounding reality, basic values of the Russian people, being important material, which promotes the development of language and communicative and speech skills of foreign students. Various types of assignments with Russian paroemias are used as a means of developing communication skills and abilities, as well as a source of additional scientific knowledge about natural objects, taking into account the direction of student training. Conclusion. The use of Russian paroemias in the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language is the basis for the formation of linguocultural and communicative competence, contributes to the activation of grammatical and lexical skills, the development of monologue and dialogic speech skills, the expansion of the lexicon, the formation of moral principles, the education of tolerant attitude towards language, culture, history, traditions and customs of other nations. The integration of oral folklore in the educational process is relevant for foreign students at different stages of learning. The vocabulary of paroemias is a special language layer, which can also be used by foreign students in their future professional sphere.

Teachers’ Written Corrective Feedback Strategies Through the Lens of the Students

This descriptive-qualitative study was conducted to venture the written corrective feedback strategies employed by the College of Teacher Education teachers in a private university in Davao City, Philippines. The study utilized thematic analysis to analyze the data gathered from the in-depth interviews of eight selected participants through a purposive sampling technique. The data revealed teachers' seven written corrective feedback strategies: lexical written feedback, grammatical written feedback, organization in writing, motivating written feedback, metalinguistic feedback, and verification feedback. Additionally, this study uncovered the impact of written corrective feedback strategies, namely improvement of lexical skills, improvement of sentence structure, improvement of grammatical skills, development of the organization in writing, enhancement of self-regulation, a decrease of the affective filter, and improvement of learning productivity. The results of this study presented various written corrective feedback strategies for the teachers. It also unveiled the implications of the strategies employed. Hence, it is gainful for the administrators and teachers because they will be encouraged to use the strategies found in the study and practice them in the academe. It will also contribute to the students in a way that they will value the feedback.

Формирование иноязычных лексических навыков младших школьников с помощью визуального словаря (Picture Dictionary)

The research aims to provide a theoretical substantiation and develop a methodology for using picture dictionaries when teaching foreign language vocabulary to grade schoolers. The paper discusses the notion of a picture dictionary, the features of its application for the formation of foreign language lexical skills among grade schoolers. The novelty of the research lies in clarifying the notion of a picture dictionary and determining the criteria for selecting picture dictionaries to organise foreign language teaching for grade schoolers. As a result, the researchers have developed a set of exercises for the formation of lexical skills in productive types of speech activity on the topic “Free time” using the “Children’s Picture Dictionary” for grade 3, which is based on the stages of skill formation and also includes the training of lexical skills in speech activity. Reliance on story illustrations from the dictionary is a distinctive feature of the developed methodology, which allows using the studied lexical units in context and, therefore, promotes a sound knowledge of these units.

Narrative strategy formation in the bilinguals’ stories in Russian: corpus study

The lexical parameters of oral stories of two generations of Russian-German bilinguals and the function of lexical means in the narrative strategy implementation are describes. Through addressing the oral narrative this study is included in the range of modern works considering the features of text generation by bilinguals. The relevance of the study lies both in the material and in the chosen methods of analysis. The aim of the study is to identify the degree of the narrative strategy formation at the lexical level among representatives of two generations of Russian-German bilinguals in comparison with monolingual Russian native speakers. The research material is a corpus of experimentally collected oral stories (47 texts) of German-Russian bilinguals. M. Mayer’s book “Frog, where are you?” was used as a stimulus for subjects. The test subjects were representatives of 22 families: children - 26 people aged 8 to 19 years, parents - 21 people aged 30 to 55 years. To compare the characteristics of the corpora, the similar corpus of oral stories of monolinguals (42 stories) was involved. Quantitative and statistical analysis, corpus analysis, thematic and semantic analysis of vocabulary, elements of structural analysis of narrative were used. The novelty of the study is the corpus analysis identification of lexical parameters of narrative strategies used by two generations of bilinguals. The analysis showed that the degree of lexical skills development in the implementation of narrative strategies in bilinguals is lower than in monolinguals in both age groups, despite the statistical similarity of the texts of both corpora. This concerns, first of all, the completeness and uniformity of the lexical expression of the mandatory components of the narrative stimulated by the material, and the relations between them in the text. At the same time, the general trend of narrative creation was in line with expectations. The identified parameters can be further methodically interpreted in order to prepare educational materials for bilinguals.

Effects of Bilingualism on Students' Linguistic Education: Specifics of Teaching Phonetics and Lexicology.

In the study of English in a bylingual environment, issues related to the need to develop students' phonetic and lexical competencies, which include communication, phonetic and auditory skills and lexical sufficiency, are of particular relevance. The motive of this study is the need to improve the methodology of teaching English in the context of student immersion in a foreign language educational environment, by implementing additional thematic courses in the general educational program aimed at improving the phonetic and lexical competencies necessary for successful learning in a bilingual environment. The purpose of the article is to study the feasibility and effectiveness of studying phonetics and lexicology by students-translators who study in a bilingual educational environment. An educational experiment was conducted with the participation of 75 students-translators, in the educational process of which the disciplines of phonetics and lexicology were integrated for two academic hours per week for one year. The effectiveness of studying phonetics and lexicology within the framework of bilingual education has been proved and the skills and achievements of students that they have acquired in the process of bilingual education with an emphasis on phonetics and lexicology have been analyzed. Control tests yielded the following results: among the 46 Russian-speaking participants the percentage of English speakers at the C2 level was 7% (3 people), C1-79% (36 people), B2-14% (7 people). To achieve the most effective learning in a bilingual environment, especially when it takes place in a minority language, it is worth emphasizing students' learning of phonetics and vocabulary. Using this approach, students were able to form and develop a number of phonetic and lexical skills and improve academic performance.

Формирование иноязычных лексических навыков младших школьников с помощью метода предметно-языкового интегрированного обучения (CLIL) в условиях языкового лагеря

The research aims to theoretically substantiate and develop a methodology for using the method of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) for teaching vocabulary to grade schoolers in a language camp. The paper discusses the notion of the CLIL method, the features of its application for the formation of foreign-language lexical skills among grade schoolers, as well as the specifics of learning in a summer language camp. The scientific novelty of the research lies in clarifying the notion of a “language camp” and determining the pedagogical conditions for the organisation of foreign-language teaching for grade schoolers in a language camp. As a result, the methodology for the formation of lexical skills in all types of speech activity on the topic “Plants and their cultivation” based on the integration of the subjects “World study” and “English language” for grade 3, which includes such stages as orientational-preparatory, stereotyping-situational and varying-situational, as well as all four components of the CLIL method, i.e. cognition, culture, communication and content, has been developed.

Developing Pedagogical Applications for Teaching Politeness Strategies in Advanced English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

The field of English as a foreign language (EFL) strives to promote students' proficiency by equipping them with proper grammatical and lexical skills. However, EFL textbooks often neglect the teaching of pragmatics which can lead to cross-cultural communication failures for EFL learners. EFL learners often struggle with traditional language teaching approaches that prioritize grammatical development over pragmatic skills. This paper aims to address this gap by focusing on promoting the use of politeness strategies among EFL learners in cross-cultural communication, particularly in email correspondences with college professors. The proposed teaching activities are based on the Linguistic Theory of Politeness and the 3Ds framework within the context of the Communicative Repertoire Approach. This paper aims to assist advanced EFL learners in effectively employing politeness strategies when writing email requests to college professors, by offering practical pedagogical applications that enhance EFL learners' ability to express their communicative intentions clearly and avoid any potential misunderstanding or misinterpretation by their college professors.

Relationship between lexical, reading and spelling skills in bilingual language minority children and their monolingual peers.

This study was conducted on a population of primary school children including bilingual language minority (BLM) children with L2-Italian and a variety of languages as L1 (e.g., Chinese, Albanian, Latin), and Italian-speaking monolingual children. The variety of languages ecologically reflects the nowadays composition of classes in the Italian school system. The aims were to investigate in both linguistic groups: (1) the developmental patterns of lexical, reading and spelling skills; (2) the pattern of predictive relations between lexical, reading and spelling skills. 159 primary school children from Grade 2 to Grade 5 participated in the study: BLM (n = 80) and monolingual (n = 79) children aged between 7 and 11 years. Each participant completed a vocabulary task (lexical skills), a text reading task (reading accuracy and reading speed) and a text dictation task (orthographic errors). ANOVA statistics showed the comparison of patterns between monolingual and BLM children in lexical, reading, and writing skills. Results show lower performances in lexical, reading and spelling skills in BLM children learning Italian as a second language compared to monolingual peers. Second, partial correlations performed separately for monolinguals and BLM with lexical ability as a control variable, illustrated that all variables correlated with each other in both groups. This result provides the option of performing hierarchical regressions. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses showed that the pattern of predictive relations between lexical, reading and spelling skills is the same across language groups, with the key role of orthographic accuracy as the pivotal process around which reading and lexical skills are built.

The Role of Internal and External Individual Difference Factors in Bilingual Development: Exploring Highly Proficient Kurdish-English Bilinguals’ Perceptions

Drawing on qualitative research, the present study examines the characteristics of seven highly proficient Kurdish-English bilingual adolescents and their perceptions of the role of individual difference factors in bilingual development. Adopting a deductive thematic analysis approach, the collected data from semi-structured interviews were analyzed. The findings indicate that special attention should be paid to both internal and external factors in order for Kurdish-English bilinguals to reach high level of proficiency in both languages. External factors of richness of input, input quantity, language output, and socioeconomic status are crucial for fostering morphosyntactic and lexical skills in Kurdish and English. Moreover, the bilingual learners stated that conducting mathematical and logical problem-solving activities frequently and having high level of language learning aptitude are important predictors of rapid development of bilingual language abilities. In terms of age effects, the bilingual adolescents conveyed that having younger age and earlier start to Kurdish and English learning always lead to better morphosyntactic and lexical outcomes in both languages. To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first to explore the role of individual difference factors in bilingual development among highly proficient Kurdish-English bilinguals. The paper highlights implications and directions for further research.

Lexical Competence Formative Control in Development of Intercultural Foreign Language Communicative Competence of Prospective German Language Teachers

Introduction. The article examines the formative control of lexical competence in the conditions of the formation of intercultural communication in the German language. Attention is focused on the interrelation of control objects with the educational program of specialty 014 “Secondary education.” Purpose. The paper shows successful mastery of the lexical aspect; it depends on certain linguistic strategies, expressed through techniques, methods, and means of their implementation. The objects of lexical competence control are described and examples of types of exercises for their implementation are given. Methods. The professional competencies of the educational program have been analyzed and knowledge, skills, and abilities were singled out as objects of lexical competence control in the German language. The professional literature on the issue of control/self-control, and evaluation/self-evaluation in the process of formation of foreign language skills and abilities have been analyzed. Results. The importance of the linguistic base for the development of intercultural foreign language communicative competence of prospective German language teachers is noted. Improving lexical skills and abilities through using a variety of lexical and phraseological units optimizes the acquisition of cultural knowledge about the countries and languages being studied. With the help of the lexical aspect, it is possible to form a linguistic picture of the world, to reproduce the value orientations of the peoples whose language has become the subject of study. Conclusion. Thus, examples of communicative productive exercises using the method of problem-based learning and a cultural assimilator for lexical competence formative control are given. The course of exercises is described, and attention is also focused on their content, the intercultural aspect of which determines the national-cultural characteristics of the German language.

Methods for Forming Lexical Skills in Teaching the Kazakh Language (in classes with non-Kazakh language of instruction)

This article discusses the methodology for the formation of lexical skills in teaching the Kazakh language. In the course of the study, a set of exercises aimed at the formation of lexical skills was developed and presented. The process of forming lexical skills in teaching the Kazakh language at school is considered at a level above the average. The problems of the formation of lexical skills today are becoming the subject of study of the works of many linguists and methodologists. The results of the analysis of domestic literature and the practice of teaching foreign languages allow us to conclude that one of the main problems in the process of teaching vocabulary is the formation of lexical skills. It cannot be said that conducting Kazakh language lessons in the traditional way in the educational process in secondary schools forms lexical skills at a high level. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to test the effectiveness of a set of tasks designed to develop lexical skills at the highest level of education. Durıng study, we have used a set of methods that corresponded to the topic of the article: the method of direct observation, descriptive, data comparison, generalization and interpretation of the information received. Empirical methods were also used as a study of pedagogical practice, a methodological experiment and a survey. The results of the study confirmed the assumption that without fully formed lexical skills it is impossible to conduct an effective educational process when teaching the Kazakh language to schoolchildren, and it was found that lexical skills should be aimed at developing productive activities that allow for language communication.

Foundations for English for specific purposes: improving student’s vocabulary

The article deals with the problem of development of lexical skills at the lessons of English language and it gives an overview of the experience of teaching General English course as a foundation English course for specific purposes to the first-year Elementary level students of International Information Technology University (IITU). This academic year, there were about 778 students who were enrolled to the General English Elementary course. Students of IITU have to study General English and Academic English courses before studying “English for Specific Purposes” courses in order to improve their levels of English. As we know, the purpose of English language teaching is the ability to communicate. In this process, learning vocabulary plays a vital role in all language skills. Learners cannot understand others or express their own ideas without enough vocabulary. Accordingly, we will outline some activities, tools for teaching vocabulary in this work. The article encompasses the activities for improving the vocabulary of learners. The activities were used in teaching English language to the first-year Elementary level students at International Information Technology University, Almaty. Forty students studied online for four weeks. They studied online using Microsoft Teams, Moodle and other platforms. Students worked with different textbooks which were listed in the syllabus. The aim of this article is to focus on improving students’ vocabulary skill and analyzing what results have been achieved in four weeks. For this purpose, every week students had to work with new vocabulary topics which were indicated in the academic program. As a result, most students have achieved the aim of the syllabus and students were able to recognize familiar words, interpret and understand authentic oral speech on the studied topics and express their opinion on them

Developing Lexical Competence in Educational Institutions

This article is importance of lexical skills in the context of interdisciplinary relations as an integral part of the lexical competence of a foreign language is emphasized, their specificity and conditions of formation are described, based on the advantage of constructing a lexical competence of a foreign language on an interdisciplinary basis. This involves taking into account the linguistic characteristics of the students as well as the educational and cognitive activities.

METHODOLOGICAL TYPOLOGY OF LEXICAL MATERIAL

The purpose of this article is to consider the place and specifics of lexical skills, appeal to the lexical side of the language, define vocabulary, as it is known, this is the main building material of the language. Unlike grammar, which reflects the relationship between classes of words, and always generalizes, vocabulary individualizes the utterance, gives it a specific meaning.

Social Media Influenced Lexicons: A Child’s Vocabulary Production in Talk-In Interactions

Social media has become a prominent medium of communication and has been used by all generations, including the youngest members of society. It has emerged as a powerful communication medium that makes interactions rapid, simple, and sensible. Youngsters also use social media to have fun, form and maintain connections, share and discover hobbies, explore identities, and grow familial ties; it is a continuation of their in-person and offline encounters. There is an assumption that with their exposure to modern gadgets, internet connectivity, and various online networking sites, children's daily talk-in interactions are influenced by social media languages. Utilizing a qualitative-descriptive research design, conversation analysis, Vygotsky's theory of language development and an interactionism approach, the purpose of the study is to provide an elaborated academic account of a child’s vocabulary production in casual conversations and list down the emerging social-media-influenced lexicons generated from a child, which were classified according to six-word categories: slang, colloquialism, alphabetism, neologism, loan words, and pseudowords. Findings show that the trends in digital exchanges on social media platforms have prevalent occurrences in a child’s everyday language, where some words and phrases possess critical meanings, as the child’s denotations and social-media connotations have a contrastive nature. As children develop their productive lexical skills using social media, the study highlights Vygotsky’s assertion on the importance of a child’s "more knowledgeable other" in language acquisition, production, and development.

Associations between early lexical composition and pre-reading skills at 5 years – A longitudinal study

BackgroundAt the end of the second year, children's lexical compositions (LexC) differ significantly in terms of variety of lexical categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, closed-class words). The aim of this study was to investigate whether this variation is associated with acquisition of pre-reading skills (PreRS) at 5;0. AimsTo study the associations between LexC at 2;0 and PreRS at 5;0 and to examine the possible explaining value of LexC and lexicon size for PreRS. Participants and methodsParticipants were 66 healthy, monolingual Finnish speaking children. LexC was measured at 2;0 using the standardized Finnish long form version of the MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventory (FinCDI). Raw scores and percentages of words were used in the analysis. At 5;0, PreRS variables of letter knowledge, rapid automatized naming (RAN), lexical ability and phonological processing were collected. ResultsThe number of social terms, nouns, verbs, adjectives and closed class words associated significantly with all PreRS except RAN. The percentages of predicates and closed class words were positively associated with PreRS. All LexC variables and lexicon size at 2;0 had significant predictive values for the composite pre-reading score, explaining 19–32 % of the variation. The best model to explain PreRS included the number of nouns as the linguistic variable. A high percentage of social terms at 2;0 proposed weak PreRS at 5;0. ConclusionsLexC at 2;0 is a significant predictor of PreRS at 5;0. Closer examination of lexical composition is important, when assessing lexical skills at the end of the second year.