Oral Vocabulary Research Articles

The More the Merrier? On the Influence of Indexical Variability on Second Language Vocabulary Learning

AbstractWe investigated indexical variation as a variable that promotes second language (L2) vocabulary learning across language modalities. In three experiments, we presented Catalan Sign Language signs (Experiments 1a and 1b), pseudowords (Experiment 2), and English words (Experiment 3) to participants in three conditions that varied in the number of people who introduced these stimuli (one, three, or six people). We evaluated learning outcomes in two recall tasks: a picture‐to‐L2 naming task and a L2‐to‐L1 translation task. For the sign modality, indexical variation benefitted the immediate recall of signs in the translation task (Experiment 1a) and delayed recall after two weeks in the picture naming task (Experiment 1b). For the oral modality, we observed no effect when participants learned pseudowords (Experiment 2), but variability benefited recall in the translation task when participants learned English words (Experiment 3). We discuss these contrastive results, considering the influence of indexical variation in adult L2 sign and oral vocabulary learning.

Prosodic Transfer in English Literacy Skills among Chinese Elementary-Age Students: Controlling for Non-Verbal Intelligence.

Building upon the prosodic transfer hypothesis, the current study aims to examine the intermediary effect of English stress on the relation between Chinese lexical tone awareness and English word-level literacy (reading and spelling) as well as the moderating effect of English oral vocabulary proficiency on the cross-linguistic association. Grade 4 Chinese learners of English (N = 224) participated in this study and were assessed for their tone and stress sensitivity, English oral vocabulary, English word reading, and English word spelling. Mediated multivariate analyses with moderation were used to explore: (1) whether the influence of lexical tone perception on L2 word reading and spelling was mediated by English stress as posited in the prosodic transfer hypothesis; (2) whether the effects of tone on English word reading and spelling performance varied as a function of oral vocabulary levels. The findings revealed a direct positive relationship between Chinese tone and English word reading and spelling, and the relationship was mediated by English stress awareness. Furthermore, the direct pathway from tone to English word-level literacy skills were moderated by oral vocabulary and the relationship between tone and English word-level skills became stronger as oral vocabulary levels increased; however, such strength reached a plateau among children without adequate oral vocabulary skills. These findings suggest the necessity to incorporate word spelling as an outcome in the cross-suprasegmental phonological transfer models of early literacy development. Additionally, the current study endorses the complexity of cross-language prosodic transfer. It points to a precise threshold for sufficient L2 oral vocabulary skills to enable tone transfer in English word-level literacy attainment.

Putting it into context

Abstract Developing L2 learners’ productive mastery of vocabulary is a challenging task. Recent research has called for greater attention to understanding how receptive vocabulary may be transformed for productive use (Schmitt, 2019). Using a design-based research methodology, this study investigated adult ESL learners’ productive oral vocabulary development through engaging them in a series of classroom workshops where they were exposed to nine target words in five different contexts. Findings suggest that such exposure to words combined with phonological form-focused elaboration facilitates the development of metalinguistic awareness, specifically the associations between grammatical patterns and word meaning, leading to subsequent productive use of target words. The paper contributes to the understanding that vocabulary training combining a focus on meaning with a focus on phonological and grammatical form may enhance form-meaning mapping, leading to productive oral vocabulary development.

Early Identification of Children with Dyslexia: Variables Differentially Predict Poor Reading Versus Unexpected Poor Reading.

Definitions of dyslexia typically make reference to unexpected poor reading, although how best to operationalize unexpected remains an issue. When operationally defined as reading below expectations based on level of oral language, cases of unexpected poor reading make up fewer than half of cases of poor reading, and cases of unexpected poor reading occur throughout the range of reading proficiency. An implication is that what optimally predicts poor reading may not optimally predict unexpected poor reading. The goal of the three presented studies was to test this implication empirically. In Study 1, a model-based meta-analysis, phonological awareness accounted for 40% of the variance in decoding but only 1% of the variance in decoding that was unexpected based on level of vocabulary. Conversely, unexpected phonological awareness accounted for 34% of the variance in unexpected decoding but only 1% of the variance in decoding. An analogous pattern of results occurred for reading comprehension. In Study 2, a study of 766 children in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, latent variables were used to represent oral vocabulary, phonological awareness, and decoding. As was seen in Study 1, unexpected decoding was better predicted by unexpected phonological awareness than by phonological awareness. In Study 3, a longitudinal study of 1,025 children followed from preschool through grade 2, the pattern of results mirrored those of Studies 1 and 2. An important implication of these studies is that typical assessments may be better at identifying poor reading than they are at identifying unexpected poor reading or dyslexia.

Flexible phonics: a complementary ‘next generation’ approach for teaching early reading

AbstractWe describe the rationale for‐ and content of‐ a freely available, novel, theoretically driven and evidence‐based approach to improving the teaching of word reading in reception classrooms called ‘Flexible Phonics’. Flexible Phonics (FP) adds measurable value to‐, rather than wholly replacing, existing synthetic phonics programmes. The rationale underpinning the FP approach concerns the need for multi‐componential, maximally efficient, and truly generative approaches to allow early independence in reading for all children that apply to all words in the opaque spelling system of English. Building from these three principles, contemporary reading theory and evidence from cognitive science, linguistics and scaled educational implementation research, FP embodies a 5‐element intervention differentiated to children's current attainment levels. FP augments mandated synthetic phonics through use of quality real books allowing ‘Direct Mapping’ of taught grapheme‐phoneme correspondences, targeted oral vocabulary teaching, strategy‐instruction on ‘Set‐for‐Variability’ and targeted preventative intervention for the most at‐risk readers to then access wider FP content. Implications for policy and enhanced professional practice in English schools are considered.

Bidirectional transfer of definition skills and expressive vocabulary knowledge in Chinese-English dual language learners

ABSTRACT Though Mandarin Chinese dual language immersion (DLI) has been growing rapidly in the U.S., research on this population is still rare. This study explored cross-language transfer of expressive oral vocabulary knowledge and definition skills among students in a Chinese DLI program. We found significant within and cross-language relationships of aspects of definition skills and cross-language relationships between expressive vocabulary and definition skills. Hierarchical regression revealed strong predictive association within and across languages for definition skills. Moderation analysis revealed that Chinese vocabulary knowledge had a moderating effect on the transfer of the syntagmatic aspect of Chinese definition skill to the corresponding skill in English. Educational implications and research recommendations are discussed in relation to an expanding framework of cross-language transfer.

The effect of oral vocabulary training on reading novel complex words.

Do readers benefit from their knowledge of the phonological form and meaning of stems when seeing them embedded in morphologically complex words for the first time in print? This question was addressed using a word learning paradigm. Participants were trained on novel spoken word stems and their meanings ("tump"). Following training, participants then saw the novel stems for the first time in print, either in combination with a real affix (tumpist, tumpor) or with a non-affix (tumpel, tumpain). Untrained items were also included to test whether the affix effect was modulated by the prior training of the spoken word stems. First, the complex words were embedded in meaningful sentences which participants read as their eye movements were recorded (first orthographic exposure). Second, participants were asked to read aloud and spell each individual complex novel word (second orthographic exposure). Participants spent less time fixating on words that included trained stems compared with untrained stems. However, the training effect did not change depending on whether stems were accompanied by a real affix or a non-affix. In the reading aloud and spelling tasks, there was no effect of training, suggesting that the effect of oral vocabulary training did not extend beyond the initial print exposure. The results indicate that familiarity with spoken stems influences how complex words containing those stems are processed when being read for the first time. Our findings highlight the flexibility and adaptability of the morphological processing system to novel complex words during the first print exposure.

Проблеми номінації повстанської пісні

Terminological issues are considered as an important aspect of the folklore study. Their clear interpretation helps and Terminological issues are considered as an important aspect of the folklore study. Their clear interpretation helps and makes it easy to carry out the research. We face various definitions of the phenomenon «rebellious folklore» and, in particular, «rebellious song» («antioccupational», «guerilla», «slave», «the folklore of forest guys», «rebellious folklore», etc.) at the modern stage. The definitions «rebellious songs», «the songs of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army», «revolutionary», «Bandera’s songs», «military songs» are used simultaneously. The views of the researchers of this oral vocabulary level are generalized and the authoress visions are expressed. The purpose of the submitted article is to analyze the problems of study and nomination of a rebellious song at the modern period, to determine the questions of terminology and the criteria of genre division.

Orthographic facilitation of oral vocabulary acquisition in primary school children.

Children's oral vocabulary acquisition is an important aspect of language development that plays a crucial role in reading and literacy development and subsequent academic success. Therefore, it is important to identify and implement evidence-based effective strategies of vocabulary instruction for primary school children. Orthographic facilitation refers to the benefit afforded to word learning by incidentally presenting spellings when new words are introduced. This study aimed to replicate the orthographic facilitation effect in primary school (Grades 1-6) children and further assess whether children in different grades benefitted differently from the presence of orthography during spoken word learning. To do this, 91 children from Grades 1 to 6 were taught novel picture-word pairs with or without spellings. Word learning was assessed during and after training using behavioural and eye-tracking data from picture-naming and picture-word-matching (PWM) tasks. Irrespective of grade, all children experienced a significant orthographic facilitation effect during training. The post-training results were more task dependent with all grades showing a significant orthographic facilitation effect on the picture-naming task, and only Grades 1 to 4 showing a facilitation effect on the PWM task. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Interactive digital media assignments: effects on EFL learners’ overall and micro-level oral language skills

Owing to the plethora of user-friendly audio/video creation and editing applications as well as free full-featured hosting platforms, videoing and sharing has become a lifestyle of today’s students. Utilizing these spontaneous practices, the current study examined the effects of digital media assignments (DMAs) and accompanying asynchronous interaction on EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ oral language skills. For this purpose, a cohort of 124 EFL college students was randomly selected and assigned into three groups: interactive digital media assignments (IDMA, n = 43), non-interactive digital media assignments (NDMA, n = 41), and traditional face-to-face assignments (FTFA, n = 40). The study adopted the mixed-method sequential explanatory design wherein quantitative data collection and analysis (oral language skills pre-posttests) was followed by qualitative data collection and analysis (perceptions survey). Quantitative findings revealed that participants in all groups showed improvements in both overall and micro-level oral language skills (i.e. oral content, fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar). However, IDMA students outperformed both NDMA and FTFA ones. Comparing NDMA and FTFA groups, the former performed better than the latter only in content and vocabulary, whereas it could not in fluency, pronunciation, grammar, or overall oral language skills. Thus, it can be inferred that DMAs alone helped improve only content elaboration and vocabulary. However, when done interactively, they could bolster students’ overall as well as all micro-level oral language skills when compared to face-to-face assignments. Besides, despite describing digital media production as exhausting and time-consuming, IDMA students reported increased self-confidence, technical literacy, and language competence and decreased speaking apprehension.

Do Struggling Adult Readers Monitor Their Reading? Understanding the Role of Online and Offline Comprehension Monitoring Processes During Reading

Comprehension monitoring is a meta-cognitive skill that is defined as the ability to self-evaluate one’s comprehension of text. Although it is known that struggling adult readers are poor at monitoring their comprehension, additional research is needed to understand the mechanisms underlying comprehension monitoring and their role in reading comprehension in this population. This study used a comprehension monitoring task with struggling adult readers, which included online eye movements (reread and regression path durations) and an offline verbal protocol (oral explanations of key information). We examined whether eye movements predicted accuracy on the passages’ reading comprehension questions, a norm-referenced reading assessment, and an offline verbal protocol after controlling for age and traditional component skills (i.e., decoding, oral language, working memory). Regression path duration uniquely predicted accuracy on the questions; however, decoding and oral vocabulary were the most salient predictors of the norm-referenced reading comprehension measure. Regression path duration also predicted the offline verbal protocol, such that those who exhibited longer regression path duration were also better at explaining key information. These results contribute to the literature regarding struggling adults’ reading component skills, eye movement behaviors involved in processing connected text, and future considerations in assessing comprehension monitoring.

How Ready Are Indian Primary School Children for English Medium Instruction? An Analysis of the Relationship between the Reading Skills of Low-SES Children, Their Oral Vocabulary and English Input in the Classroom in Government Schools in India

Abstract The aim of the study was to find out to what extent low socio-economic status (SES) children enrolled in government-run primary schools in Hyderabad are ready to receive instruction through the medium of English (English medium instruction [EMI]). To this end we investigated children’s oral vocabulary skills, the lexical complexity of their textbooks, as well as the amount of English input they receive in class. A subsample of 90 children from primary school Grades 4 and 5 who opted to carry out a story retelling task in English rather than in Telugu took part in the study. Results reveal that the children’s oral vocabulary levels are far below the levels required to read the textbook materials. The lexical diversity of the children’s stories as analysed with the Index of Guiraud was also a significant predictor of their reading comprehension scores. We conclude that children from low-SES enrolled in government schools are not ready for EMI, and call for further investigation into the levels of English vocabulary knowledge that are needed for EMI.

Home learning activities and parental autonomy support as predictors of pre-academic skills: The mediating role of young children's school liking

This study investigated the mediating role of children's school liking between parent-child interactions and children's pre-academic skills. Specifically, parent-child interactions included frequency of mothers' and fathers' formal and informal home learning activities with children, as well as their autonomy support during these activities. Three hundred first-year kindergarteners were tested on two aspects of pre-academic skills, namely oral vocabulary and object counting, while their mothers and fathers reported parent-child interactions and children's school liking. Structural equation modeling showed that after controlling for demographic variables, mother-child informal learning activities and mothers' and fathers' autonomy support were positively linked to children's pre-academic skills via school liking. Father-child informal learning activities and mother- and father-child formal learning activities were not related to children's school liking nor to pre-academic skills. Our findings suggest that more coaching can be provided to parents on how to promote children's school liking and pre-academic skills.

Children Processing Novel Irregular and Regular Words During Reading: An Eye Tracking Study

ABSTRACT Children may link words in their oral vocabulary with novel printed word forms through a process termed mispronunciation correction, which enables them to adjust an imperfect phonological decoding. Additional evidence suggests that sentence context may play a role in helping children to make link between a word in oral vocabulary and its irregular written form. Four groups of children were orally trained on a set of novel words but received no training on a second set. Half the trained words were designated irregular spellings and half regular spellings. Children later read the words in contextually supportive or neutral sentences while their eye movements were monitored. Fixations on untrained words were longer than on trained regular words but were similar to trained irregular words. Fixations on regular words were shorter than on irregular words, and there were larger differences between irregular and regular words viewed in contextually supportive sentences. Subsequently, children were able to read irregular words more accurately when they had previously appeared in a supportive context. These results suggest that orally known irregular words undergo additional processing when first viewed in text, which is consistent with the online operation of a mispronunciation correction mechanism.

The impact of using gloss-mediated vocational vocabulary learning on the oral authentic use of vocational vocabulary among Iranian ESP learners

This quasi-experimental study intended to consider the role of using CALL-based and gloss-mediated vocational vocabulary learning and its impact on authentic oral vocabulary production. The study used five different majors (anesthesiology, software, civil engineering, architecture, and electronic science); for each major, there were two classes, so the researcher conveniently selected one class as the control group and the second class as the experimental group. Thus, five classes as the control groups (each field of study one class) and five classes as the experimental groups (each field of study one class). The total number of participants was 210, that 106 learners were in the control groups and 104 were in the experimental groups. The researchers used a pretest to select the target vocational vocabulary items. For the glossed groups, all vocational vocabulary items were taught through glosses, whereas the non-glossed groups did not receive any glosses. After the treatment session, the participants were asked to participate in the pictures description task and describe 15 pictures orally. For the first research question, an Independent Sample t-Test, and for the second research question, Two-way ANOVA was used to analyze the collected data. By reviewing the inferential statistics, the significant difference between the glossed and non-gloss conditions was revealed, it can be concluded that using multimodal glossing can lead to more authentic oral production of the L2 ESP learners. Moreover, L2 teachers can use computer-based glossing information as an L2 vocabulary learning facilitator to help learners have more authentic production.

Self‐teaching in Chinese: the roles of phonetic and semantic radicals in orthographic and vocabulary learning

BackgroundPrevious work suggests that children can teach themselves new written words via reading aloud texts independently (i.e., orthographic learning via self‐teaching). In self‐teaching in Chinese, regular phonetic radicals and transparent semantic radicals facilitate orthographic learning. The present study examined the roles of phonetic and semantic radicals in both orthographic learning and oral vocabulary learning via self‐teaching among Chinese children.MethodsThirty‐four Mandarin‐speaking second graders read aloud and comprehended 12 stories annotated with Pinyin, a phonetic script in Chinese. Each story included a semantic–phonetic compound pseudocharacter appearing five times. The phonetic radicals were classified as one‐third regular, one‐third semiregular and one‐third irregular. These phonetic radicals carried full, partial or no phonetic information, depending on their regularity. Moreover, half of the semantic radicals were either transparent or opaque, meaning that they were semantically related or unrelated to the meaning of the pseudocharacters, respectively. Learning outcomes included participants' oral vocabulary learning and orthographic learning regarding word recognition and spelling.ResultsIn addition to the well‐studied orthographic learning, children can also achieve vocabulary learning via self‐teaching. Results indicate that transparent semantic radicals facilitated orthographic and vocabulary learning. Moreover, vocabulary learning was facilitated by regular phonetic radicals but hindered by semiregular phonetic radicals.ConclusionsThese findings, together, point to the roles of phonetic and semantic radicals in Chinese children's orthographic and vocabulary learning. Findings advance our understanding of self‐teaching across writing systems and add to the educational value of self‐teaching.

Using hybrid learning during the COVID-19 outbreak for developing EFL first-year secondary stage students’ oral vocabulary use and interaction

Using hybrid learning during the COVID-19 outbreak for developing EFL first-year secondary stage students’ oral vocabulary use and interaction

Early oral language in Chinese heritage language reading development

AbstractThis study explored the role of early oral language in reading development among adult heritage language (HL) learners to provide insights into the possible developmental pattern of HL reading development. One hundred and ninety‐five English‐speaking Chinese HL (CHL) students participated in this study. They completed a language background survey pertaining to their early language use in different social contexts and a series of measurements including oral vocabulary knowledge, print vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness, lexical inferencing ability, and reading comprehension. Drawing upon multivariate path analysis, the study found that oral vocabulary knowledge, as an indicator of the benefit stemming from oral language experiences, contributed to print vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness directly. However, there was no significant direct effect of oral vocabulary knowledge on higher‐level reading skills (lexical inference and reading comprehension). As well, oral vocabulary contributed to higher‐level reading skills only through the mediation of word‐knowledge skills (print vocabulary and morphological awareness). The results suggest that oral language capacity (indexed by oral vocabulary knowledge) alone is insufficient for higher‐level reading ability, but it serves as an intermediary resource to enhance higher‐level inferencing and comprehension abilities among HL students. Pedagogical implications were provided to inform HL reading instruction based on the multiple diversities of HL language experiences.

Association between genes regulating neural pathways for quantitative traits of speech and language disorders

Speech sound disorders (SSD) manifest as difficulties in phonological memory and awareness, oral motor function, language, vocabulary, reading, and spelling. Families enriched for SSD are rare, and typically display a cluster of deficits. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 435 children from 148 families in the Cleveland Family Speech and Reading study (CFSRS), examining 16 variables representing 6 domains. Replication was conducted using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). We identified 18 significant loci (combined p < 10−8) that we pursued bioinformatically. We prioritized 5 novel gene regions with likely functional repercussions on neural pathways, including those which colocalized with differentially methylated regions in our sample. Polygenic risk scores for receptive language, expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness, phonological memory, spelling, and reading decoding associated with increasing clinical severity. In summary, neural-genetic influence on SSD is primarily multigenic and acts on genomic regulatory elements, similar to other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Orthographic Facilitation of Oral Vocabulary Acquisition in Children With Hearing Loss.

Purpose Learning spoken words can be challenging for children with hearing loss who communicate orally and who are known to have weaker oral vocabulary skills than age-matched children who hear. Since vocabulary skills play a crucial role in reading and literacy acquisition, and academic success, it is important to identify effective vocabulary acquisition strategies for children with hearing loss. The aim of this study was to examine whether the incidental presence of orthography can facilitate oral vocabulary learning in children with hearing loss and whether the benefits are greater than those found in hearing children. Method We taught novel picture-word pairs with or without spellings to 23 children with hearing loss and 23 age-matched controls, ranging in age from 6 to 12 years. Word learning was assessed using behavioral and eye tracking data from picture naming and picture-word matching tasks. Results and Conclusions Results revealed an orthographic facilitation effect on oral vocabulary learning in children with hearing loss, with benefits being maintained over a week. Importantly, children with hearing loss showed a greater benefit of orthography than age-matched hearing peers on the picture naming tests. The results of this study have important implications for classroom instruction and vocabulary instruction strategies for children with hearing loss.