English Participants Research Articles

Using the Model Statement to Elicit Information and Cues to Deceit from Native Speakers, Non‐native Speakers and Those Talking Through an Interpreter

SummaryWe examined how the presence of an interpreter during an interview affects eliciting information and cues to deceit, whilst using a method that encourages interviewees to provide more detail (model statement, MS). Sixty native English speakers were interviewed in English, and 186 non‐native English speakers were interviewed in English or through an interpreter. Interviewees either lied or told the truth about a mock security meeting, which they reported twice: in an initial free recall and after listening to the MS. The MS resulted in the native English speakers and those interviewed with an interpreter providing more reminiscences (additional detail) than the non‐native English speakers interviewed without an interpreter. As a result, those interviewed through an interpreter provided more detail than the non‐native English speakers, but only after the MS. Native English participants were most detailed in both recalls. No difference was found in the amount of reminiscences provided by liars and truth tellers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How participants in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) employ communication strategies: multiple realities in minimal responses in ELF

This study investigates how participants in English as a lingua franca (ELF) situations at lower English proficiency level employ communication strategies in resolving problems in understanding, focusing on both verbal and non-verbal aspects. Two dyads of interlocutors were investigated in a Japanese university context: Japanese university students interacting with international students from Malaysia and with students from Saudi Arabia. Through sequential analysis, we found that a minimal response ‘oh’ made interpretation difficult for the recipient, but collaborative repair would then be employed in order to address these gaps. Furthermore, the participants also attempt to close the understanding gap by employing multimodal resources other than language when they encounter difficulty in expressing themselves verbally. In other words, difficulty in hearing or understanding causes may make the speaker or recipient employ various means to facilitate shared understanding; participants engaged in collaborative co-construction use certain verbal and non-verbal strategies in their own right.

Designing Online Nutrition Education for Low Digital Literacy Populations: Insights From the EatFresh.org Mini Course

ObjectiveTo design a user-friendly, evidence-based online nutrition course and accompanying learning management system (LMS) for the SNAP population, many of whom have low digital literacy.Target AudienceAdult (16+), low-income, English and Spanish-speaking participants.Theory, Prior Research, RationaleThis course grew out of EatFresh.org, a recipe and nutrition website. Google Analytics and enthusiasm from partners validated the appropriateness of the website, though an impact evaluation was unable to demonstrate a dose/response relationship in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. This course added the capability to assess change on nutrition indicators.DescriptionCourse was developed in leading eLearning software with content management. A combination of in-house staff combined with outsourced engineering created 15 modules and evaluation tools, which were organized into three courses. Staff and contract engineers customized an open-source LMS to build the course. Our design process allowed us to iterate on the instructional strategies, content, and online course structure to create a usable product ready to scale.EvaluationUsing a Reach Effectiveness Adoption Implementation Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework, we focused on Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance as part of our evaluation. A survey of Eatfresh.org partners validated the existence of a vibrant ecosystem for dissemination. Agile design ensured the intervention could be delivered as intended. Software was chosen for content maintenance and sustainability.Conclusions and ImplicationsThe instructional strategies underwent considerable revisions during the first stage of testing leading to the adoption of an engaging narrative structure. Dedicating time to design a simple sign-in and streamlined user flow allowed the focus to be on the dynamic content, as opposed to the mechanics of taking the course.FundingSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - Education ObjectiveTo design a user-friendly, evidence-based online nutrition course and accompanying learning management system (LMS) for the SNAP population, many of whom have low digital literacy. To design a user-friendly, evidence-based online nutrition course and accompanying learning management system (LMS) for the SNAP population, many of whom have low digital literacy. Target AudienceAdult (16+), low-income, English and Spanish-speaking participants. Adult (16+), low-income, English and Spanish-speaking participants. Theory, Prior Research, RationaleThis course grew out of EatFresh.org, a recipe and nutrition website. Google Analytics and enthusiasm from partners validated the appropriateness of the website, though an impact evaluation was unable to demonstrate a dose/response relationship in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. This course added the capability to assess change on nutrition indicators. This course grew out of EatFresh.org, a recipe and nutrition website. Google Analytics and enthusiasm from partners validated the appropriateness of the website, though an impact evaluation was unable to demonstrate a dose/response relationship in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. This course added the capability to assess change on nutrition indicators. DescriptionCourse was developed in leading eLearning software with content management. A combination of in-house staff combined with outsourced engineering created 15 modules and evaluation tools, which were organized into three courses. Staff and contract engineers customized an open-source LMS to build the course. Our design process allowed us to iterate on the instructional strategies, content, and online course structure to create a usable product ready to scale. Course was developed in leading eLearning software with content management. A combination of in-house staff combined with outsourced engineering created 15 modules and evaluation tools, which were organized into three courses. Staff and contract engineers customized an open-source LMS to build the course. Our design process allowed us to iterate on the instructional strategies, content, and online course structure to create a usable product ready to scale. EvaluationUsing a Reach Effectiveness Adoption Implementation Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework, we focused on Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance as part of our evaluation. A survey of Eatfresh.org partners validated the existence of a vibrant ecosystem for dissemination. Agile design ensured the intervention could be delivered as intended. Software was chosen for content maintenance and sustainability. Using a Reach Effectiveness Adoption Implementation Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework, we focused on Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance as part of our evaluation. A survey of Eatfresh.org partners validated the existence of a vibrant ecosystem for dissemination. Agile design ensured the intervention could be delivered as intended. Software was chosen for content maintenance and sustainability. Conclusions and ImplicationsThe instructional strategies underwent considerable revisions during the first stage of testing leading to the adoption of an engaging narrative structure. Dedicating time to design a simple sign-in and streamlined user flow allowed the focus to be on the dynamic content, as opposed to the mechanics of taking the course. The instructional strategies underwent considerable revisions during the first stage of testing leading to the adoption of an engaging narrative structure. Dedicating time to design a simple sign-in and streamlined user flow allowed the focus to be on the dynamic content, as opposed to the mechanics of taking the course.

When repeating aloud enhances episodic memory for spoken words: interactions between production- and perception-derived variability

ABSTRACTWe demonstrate that the phonetic detail of an original speaker’s pronunciation for a word can be detected with a memory measure even when a participant listens to and then repeats that word aloud (production). At study, native English participants heard English words pronounced by a native speaker of American-English or by a Chinese national. For half of the words they listened. For the others, they produced it. In both recall and old/new recognition tests in Experiment 1, production improved performance relative to listening alone. Effects of accent were present only in recognition and only in interaction with production. In Experiment 2, a source-monitoring recognition test where participants identified whether the speaker of a word changed from study to test, effects of accent and production were additive indicating that hearing an unfamiliar accent increased memory irrespective of production. An exemplar account including both production- as well as perception-derived experience describes the outcome.

Experience-dependent plasticity in the neural weighting of pitch dimensions: A machine learning approach

We conducted a cross-linguistic study to evaluate the impact of language experience on midbrain encoding of acoustic dimensions. Midbrain electrophysiological responses were recorded to the four Mandarin tones in native Chinese (N = 10) and English (N = 10) listeners, through a counter-balanced block design. English participants were trained over multiple days to achieve tone categorization accuracy and reaction time equal to that of the Chinese participants. We assessed the extent to which the four Mandarin tones could be discerned from the electrophysiological responses, using a data-driven machine learning approach. The machine learning output was used to generate dissimilarity matrices that were subjected to a multidimensional scaling (MDS) model. A two dimensional MDS solution emerged that corresponded to “pitch height” and “pitch direction” of the Mandarin tones. Findings derived from the individual differences scaling (INDSCAL) method revealed that, initially, pitch direction was weighted more by t...

Correlates of Performance of Healthcare Workers in Emergency, Triage, Assessment and Treatment plus Admission Care (ETAT+) Course in Rwanda: Context Matters.

BackgroundThe Emergency, Triage, Assessment and Treatment plus Admission care (ETAT+) course, a comprehensive advanced pediatric life support course, was introduced in Rwanda in 2010 to facilitate the achievement of the fourth Millennium Development Goal. The impact of the course on improving healthcare workers (HCWs) knowledge and practical skills related to providing emergency care to severely ill newborns and children in Rwanda has not been studied.ObjectiveTo evaluate the impact of the ETAT+ course on HCWs knowledge and practical skills, and to identify factors associated with greater improvement in knowledge and skills.MethodsWe used a one group, pre-post test study using data collected during ETAT+ course implementation from 2010 to 2013. The paired t-test was used to assess the effect of ETAT+ course on knowledge improvement in participating HCWs. Mixed effects linear and logistic regression models were fitted to explore factors associated with HCWs performance in ETAT+ course knowledge and practical skills assessments, while accounting for clustering of HCWs in hospitals.Results374 HCWs were included in the analysis. On average, knowledge scores improved by 22.8/100 (95% confidence interval (CI) 20.5, 25.1). In adjusted models, bilingual (French & English) participants had a greater improvement in knowledge 7.3 (95% CI 4.3, 10.2) and higher odds of passing the practical skills assessment (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.60; 95% CI 1.25, 5.40) than those who were solely proficient in French. Participants who attended a course outside of their health facility had higher odds of passing the skills assessment (aOR = 2.11; 95% CI 1.01, 4.44) than those who attended one within their health facility.ConclusionsThe current study shows a positive impact of ETAT+ course on improving participants’ knowledge and skills related to managing emergency pediatric and neonatal care conditions. The findings regarding key factors influencing ETAT+ course outcomes demonstrate the importance of considering key contextual factors (e.g., language barriers) that might affect HCWs performance in this type of continuous medical education.

Rising to the bilingual challenge: self-reported experiences of managing life with two languages

ABSTRACTA recent surge of findings on bilingual cognitive advantage has attracted attention from both researchers and the media. An advantage has been demonstrated with regard to, inter alia, inhibiting, switching, monitoring and updating. However, Paap et al. argue that the advantage does not exist or is only limited to executive functioning. Both sides of the debate are well grounded in research. Nevertheless, what seems to be missing from the current discussion is the voice of bilingual speakers, that is , how they manage life with two languages and if they perceive any cognitive, social or economic advantages or indeed, disadvantages of knowing two languages more than one language. Here, I report on an extensive questionnaire in which German–English participants reflected upon their use of languages and the particular benefits as well as the challenges they face. Constructs, such as inhibition, retrieval of words language mixing were explored. It has been elicited that all participants considered knowledge of two languages to be highly advantageous despite encountering occasional problems in the form of: tip of the tongue states, code switching or relying on literal translation. In general, all participants agreed that the positive aspects of being bilingual greatly outweigh the negatives.

Abstract A50: Differences in perceived personal control among Latina women undergoing genetic cancer risk assessment for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer

Abstract Introduction: Genetic cancer risk assessment (GCRA) is a growing subspecialty that identifies individuals at risk for hereditary predisposition to cancer. Despite recognition of GCRA as a standard-of-care service, there are significant disparities in access to GCRA among at-risk underserved Latina women. Therefore, little is known about the emotional and decisional experience of Latinas undergoing GCRA. Previous studies have looked at the concept of perceived personal control (PPC) as an outcome variable of GCRA, measuring an individual's feelings of control related to the possibility of having a hereditary condition. This study examined PPC among patients participating in a randomized controlled study examining the effect of an adapted motivational interview (AMI) pre-GCRA telephone intervention to promote uptake of GCRA by underserved Latinas. Purpose: To evaluate the influence of the AMI intervention and GCRA on PPC at baseline, immediately pre- and post-GCRA among English and Spanish-speaking Latinas at risk for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Method: Eligible participants were adult women who self-identified as Latina, understood English and/or Spanish, and met NCCN criteria for BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing. Participants were randomized to a motivational interview intervention, time and attention control, or usual care. A validated 9-item instrument to assess three dimensions of perceived personal control (behavioral, decisional, and cognitive control) over a genetic problem and the counseling process was translated to Spanish and verbally administered in the patients' preferred language at baseline (prior to randomization) and immediately pre and post-GCRA. A higher PPC score indicates an increased sense of PPC. The three dimensions of PPC encompass a total PPC score. Results: Of the 411 participants, 323 (78.6%) were affected by breast cancer and 88 (21.4%) were unaffected at time of enrollment. Two-hundred and eighty-two (68.6%) were Spanish-speakers and 129 (31.4%) spoke English. While not significant, total PPC scores increased from baseline to post-GCRA and from pre-GCRA to post-GCRA, but decreased from baseline to pre-GCRA for all participants (the affected and unaffected individuals, including English and Spanish-speakers). Unaffected women had significantly higher total PPC scores than women affected with cancer (p=0.001). Unaffected patients had higher cognitive PPC scores at baseline (p=0.008), pre-GCRA (p=0.019), and post-GCRA (p=0.001) compared to the affected participants at all three time points. Unaffected individuals scored higher in behavioral PPC at post-GCRA than the affected participants (p=0.012). The unaffected individuals scored higher in decisional PPC at post-GCRA compared to the affected individuals (p=0.005). There were no significant differences in PPC scores between English and Spanish-speaking participants or between study arms. Conclusion: Cognitive, decisional, behavioral, and total PPC scores were highest at post-GCRA among all groups (unaffected and affected individuals, and English and Spanish-speakers). Unaffected individuals had higher cognitive PPC scores at all three times points compared to affected participants. Interestingly, the affected participants scored higher in behavioral PPC at baseline, but scored lower post-GCRA compared to those who are unaffected. This suggests that after receiving information during GCRA, the unaffected individuals may believe that they have more control over their health and opportunities for cancer prevention. Decrease in total PPC from baseline to pre-GCRA may be associated with pre-counseling anxiety. More investigation into the three dimensions of PPC should be conducted in order to better understand their distinctions and relationship to GCRA. Citation Format: Tanya A. Chavez, Bita Nehoray, Charité Ricker, Kathleen R. Blazer, Sharon Sand, Kimlin T. Ashing, Jaime Cordova, Gwen Uman, Kai Yang, Nancy Feldman, Jeffrey N. Weitzel. Differences in perceived personal control among Latina women undergoing genetic cancer risk assessment for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eighth AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 13-16, 2015; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2016;25(3 Suppl):Abstract nr A50.

A Systematic Review of Race and Ethnicity in Hepatitis C Clinical Trial Enrollment

The African American/Black population in the United States (US) is disproportionately affected by hepatitis C virus (HCV) and has lower response rates to current treatments. This analysis evaluates the participation of African American/Blacks in North American and European HCV clinical trials. The data source for this analysis was the PubMed database.Randomized controlled clinical trials (RCT) on HCV treatment with interferon 2a or 2b between January 2000 and December 2011 were reviewed. Inclusion criteria included English language and participants 18 years or older with chronic HCV. Exclusion criteria included non-randomized trials, case reports, cohort studies, ethnic specific studies, or studies not using interferon-alfa or PEG-interferon. Of the 588 trials identified, 314 (53.4%) fit inclusion criteria. The main outcome was the rate of African American/ Black participation in North American HCV clinical trials. A meta-analysis comparing the expected and observed rates was performed.Of the RCT's that met search criteria, 123 (39.2%) reported race. Clinical trials in North America were more likely to report racial data than European trials. Racial reporting increased over time. There was a statistically significant difference among the expected and observed participation of African Americans in HCV clinical trials in North America based on the prevalence of this disease within the population.The burden of HCV among African Americans in North America is not reflected in those clinical trials designed to treat HCV. Research on minority participation in clinical trials and how to increase minority participation in clinical trials is needed.

The Role of a Domain-specific Language Mechanism in Learning Natural and Unnatural Stress

Abstract In an artificial language-learning task, two groups of English and French participants learned one of two language rules: 1) stress the first heavy (CVC) syllable, else the first syllable, or, 2) stress the first light (CV) syllable, else the first syllable. French and English participants were chosen to compare learning outcomes by speakers of different native stress systems, fixed and variable. Participants were trained on the target language by listening to a set of nonsense familiarization words exemplifying the stress rule. This was followed by a forced-choice task to choose the correct version of the words they had just learned. Following the training procedure, participants were tested on novel words with the same stress pattern to which they were familiarized. The result of the novel word testing was that the natural rule with stress on heavy syllables was learned significantly better than the unnatural, stress light syllables, rule. To account for the learnability of both the natural and the unnatural rules, I argue for the interaction of a general cognitive mechanism that facilitates learning in general and a domain-specific language mechanism that can access universal phonological principles to aid in learning a natural language rule.

Lurking and L2 Learners on a Facebook Group: The Voices of the Invisibles

<p>This qualitative research investigates the practice of lurking among English as a second language (ESL) learners in a Facebook group discussion. Lurking is a term used to describe the activity of following and observing any online discussions or activities without contributing to the discussions. Lurkers are often accused of being invisible and passive participants. Facebook groups with international members usually uses English as the medium of communication in their group discussions. It is a norm for L2 learners to lurk in the group. These L2 learners often do not have the required English language proficiency and the confidence to participate actively in the group they join. This study explores lurking behaviours of three participants in learning English in informal Facebook contexts. This study uses a qualitative case study. The study involved three L2 learners who were university students and members of a Facebook group. The study involved online observation and semi-structured interviews with these three participants. Their Facebook accounts and a common Facebook group were observed for 14 weeks, and after the online observation, the participants were interviewed. Data collected from online observation and semi-structured interviewed were analysed and managed using Atlas.ti 7. The study reveals five emerging themes such as that lurkers have poor online communication skills, lack of confidence, learning by lurking, lack of a sense of belonging and lurking is the norm of Facebook groups.</p>

English and Thai Speakers’ Perception of Mandarin Tones

<p>Language learners’ language experience is predicted to display a significant effect on their accurate perception of foreign language sounds (Flege, 1995). At the superasegmental level, there is still a debate regarding whether tone language speakers are better able to perceive foreign lexical tones than non-tone language speakers (i.e Lee et al., 1996; Burnham & Brooker, 2002). The current study aimed to shed some light on this issue. Specifically, 24 adult Thai and 21 adult English speakers, who had no knowledge on Mandarin prior to participation in the study, were recruited. The participants’ accuracy in the perception of 4 Mandarin tones (T1, T2, T3, T4) was individually examined using an identification test. 288 stimuli of /ti/, /ta/, /tu/, /tʂhi/, /tʂha/, and /tʂhu/ produced in 4 Mandarin tones were prepared. The stimuli were embedded in a carrier sentence, and were produced by a female and a male native Mandarin speaker. According to the results, (1) none of the participants achieved 100% accuracy in any of the perception tests; (2) in the perception of Mandarin T1 and T4, the Thai speakers significantly outperformed the English speakers; (3) the Thai speakers and the English speakers displayed very similar degrees of difficulty in the perception of Mandarin T2 and T3; (4) the Thai participants’ most serious confusion was in the discrimination of T2-T3, whereas the English participants showed significant confusion in the identification of T1-T2 and T2-T3. The findings suggest that tone language speakers may benefit more from their L1 in the perception of foreign lexical tones than did the non-tone language speakers. However, the degree of the beneficial effect identified was limited.</p>

Native language influence on the distributive effect in producing second language subject-verb agreement.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the distributive effect when producing subject-verb agreement in English as a second language (L2) when the participant's first language either does or does not require subject-verb agreement. Both Chinese-English and Uygur-English bilinguals were included in Experiment 1. Chinese has no required subject-verb agreement, whereas Uygur does. Results showed that the distributive effect was observed in Uygur-English bilinguals but not in Chinese-English bilinguals, indicating that this particular first language (L1) syntactic feature is one significant factor affecting the distributive effect in the production of subject-verb agreement in L2. Experiment 2 further investigated the matter by choosing Chinese-English participants with higher L2 proficiency. Still, no distributive effect was observed, suggesting that the absence of distributive effect in Chinese-English bilinguals in Experiment 1 was not due to low proficiency in the target language. Experiment 3 changed the way the stimuli were presented, highlighting the singular or distributive nature of the subject noun phrases, and the distributive effect was observed in Chinese-English bilinguals. Altogether, the results show that the L1 syntactic feature of subject-verb agreement is one significant factor affecting the distributive effect in the production of subject-verb agreement in L2. More specifically, distributive effects rarely occur in L2 when L1 has no requirement on subject-verb agreement, whereas distributive effects are more likely to occur in L2 when the L1 also has required subject-verb agreement.

An analysis of the relationship between the attitudes of Iranian EFL learners to native English speakers and their reported identity change

ABSTRACTThis study aimed at exploring the possible differences between Iranian English and non-English major students in terms of their attitude towards native English speakers and reported self-identity change. It also attempted to investigate the possible significant relationships between these two variables. The results of the independent-sample t-tests revealed a statistically significant difference for a subcategory of Attitude, that is, ethnocentricism, indicating that probably due to greater familiarity with English language and culture, students of English major were less prejudiced to their local language and culture as their mean (M = 2.74; SD = 0.51) was lower than that of non-English majors (M = 3.02; SD = 0.69). It was also observed that for English major participants, there was a close relationship between total attitude and variables of productive identity change, split identity change and total identity change; whereas for non-English major participants, it was found that total attitude had a statistically significant correlation just with the variable of subtractive identity change. These findings could shed light on the nature of the relationship between language learners’ attitude to native speakers and their identity development in an EFL context.

The Temporal Dynamics of Spoken Word Recognition in Adverse Listening Conditions.

This study examined the temporal dynamics of spoken word recognition in noise and background speech. In two visual-world experiments, English participants listened to target words while looking at four pictures on the screen: a target (e.g. candle), an onset competitor (e.g. candy), a rhyme competitor (e.g. sandal), and an unrelated distractor (e.g. lemon). Target words were presented in quiet, mixed with broadband noise, or mixed with background speech. Results showed that lexical competition changes throughout the observation window as a function of what is presented in the background. These findings suggest that, rather than being strictly sequential, stream segregation and lexical competition interact during spoken word recognition.

The role of phrasal phonology in speech perception: What perceptual epenthesis shows us

Recent research using the phenomenon of illusory vowels has raised our awareness of the extent to which speech perception is modulated by the listener's native-language phonological knowledge. However, most of the focus has been limited to word-level phonological knowledge. In this article, we suggest that the perceptual system recruits segmental phonological knowledge that makes crucial reference to prosodic domains far beyond the word-level. We report the results from three identification experiments on Korean and American English participants. In accordance with their native-language phonotactic constraints at the level of the Intonational Phrase, Korean listeners unlike American English listeners hear more illusory vowels in stimuli containing the sequence of voiced stops followed by nasal consonants (e.g. [eɡma]) than those containing voiceless stops followed by nasal consonants (e.g. [ekma]). The results are interpreted as support for the view that speech perception makes crucial reference to the concept of reverse inference.

Rethinking the ICC Framework: Transformation and Telecollaboration

AbstractThis task‐based study, designed with Helm and Guth's (2010) Telecollaboration 2.0 framework in mind, qualitatively investigated a telecollaborative exchange. Two second language (L2) Spanish participants and three L2 English participants carried out a six‐week e‐mail exchange that centered on specific holidays, giving researchers an opportunity to study participants' intercultural communicative competence (ICC) (Byram, 1997) and how participants critically analyzed and discussed cultural aspects of an L2 language (Klein & Solem, 2008). Participants' exchanges revealed the following: (1) each participant's thoughts on his/her partner's culture as was perceived through L2 instruction, (2) each partner's reaction to perceptions and insight to cultural reality, and (3) sharing of personal anecdotes. Patterns in exchanges were analyzed using NVivo 10 software with a data‐driven, hybrid analytical approach. Thematic categories were created from the data and used to code the e‐mail exchanges and subsequently correlated to Helm and Guth's (2010) framework. Results indicated that participants using a Web 1.0 resource experienced transformation through the telecollaboration. Researchers concluded that more nuanced categories were needed to assess ICC to understand the intricacies of online collaborative exchanges. Researchers believed that Web 1.0, in the absence of Web 2.0, remained a valuable venue for telecollaboration.

Queering the Social Studies: Lessons to be learned from Canadian secondary school Gay-Straight Alliances

This study examines what Social Studies teachers can learn from Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) in terms of the content that club members examine and the queer pedagogical approaches they employ. Findings reveal how educators can borrow students’ queer teaching and learning practices, and integrate their insights within Social Studies classrooms to disrupt (hetero/cis)normativity. Data derived from semi-structured interviews with five Canadian high school GSA members were analyzed using the queer theoretical and pedagogical insights of Britzman (1995. Educational Theory, 45(2), 151–165; 1998. Lost subjects, contested objects: towards a psychoanalytic inquiry of learning. New York, NY: State University of New York Press), Sedgwick (1990/2008. Epistemology of the closet. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.), and Shlasko (2005 Equity & Excellence in Education, 38(2), 123–134). Three prominent themes emerged: (1) GSAs’ queer educative role compensated for a void in LGBTQ curricular content. Although LGBTQ-inclusive content was evident within some Social Studies, English, and French classes participants called for their teachers to integrate more content that disrupts homophobia and transphobia; (2) the personal characteristics of GSA members provide insight into how Social Studies educators can mirror students’ drive to learn about and challenge preconceived and (hetero/cis)normative assumptions/beliefs; and (3) GSA’s queer educational approaches differed from the (hetero/cis)normative teaching and learning practices of their educators. GSA members engaged in student-led dialogue, and spearheaded queer initiatives and events to contest anti-LGBTQ attitudes at their schools. It is argued that when educators follow the lead of GSA members they may enhance their approach to and engagement with LGBTQ topics, and expand the queer pedagogical potential of the Social Studies.

Phonetic Training Significantly Mitigates the Stress ‘Deafness’ of French Speakers

<p>Stress ‘deafness’ refers to the inconsistent perception and/or processing of phonological stress by speakers of fixed stress languages such as French. This paper briefly reports on the results of a study in which French and English participants performed an ABX word stress task, similar to Dupoux et al.’s (1997) Experiment 1. One group of French and a group of English speakers received phonetic training designed to improve perception while two other groups of French and English speakers received no training. The training was an adaptation of the perceptual fading technique, which exposes listeners to stressed syllables that exaggerate the durational correlate of stress, then gradually reduces the durations of subsequent stressed syllables to increase participants’ overall ability to accurately perceive stressed syllables. The trained French group performed significantly better than the untrained group with fewer errors and lower response times. As expected there was no difference in accuracy between the trained and untrained English groups. We argue that by exaggerating the duration cue for stress, the phonetic training led to increased overall perception, perhaps even beginning to build an abstract phonological representation of stress that was then carried into the ABX task. Although trained on artificially manipulated stimuli, participants were able to perform well on naturally-produced novel stimuli.</p>

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Communication Apprehension A Comparison of Three European Nations

Data from England, Finland, and Germany were used to explore national differences in communication apprehension (CA). Based on the traditions of oral communication training in each nation, and the history of cross-cultural comparisons in CA, it was proposed that national differences would emerge. English participants scored lower than Finnish and German participants on totalCA, publicCA, dyadicCA, and meetingCA; Finnish participants scored higher than all nations on totalCA, dyadicCA, and meetingCA; and German participants consistently scored in the middle on all aspects of CA, except for publicCA. The study of oral communication, conversational style, and politeness are discussed as potential variables relating to CA differences between the nations.