Separate Sentences Research Articles

Assessing storytelling as a tool for improving reading comprehension in the EFL primary classroom

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the effect of storytelling in helping children read and comprehend English in primary schools.Design/methodology/approachThe study includes 44 eight-year-old students, being divided into two equal groups. They are Catalan/Spanish native speakers, and their English level is pre-A1 (CEFR). The two groups studied the same topic with similar vocabulary and grammatical structures; however, only the experimental group learnt with storytelling. A pre-test, a post-test and exercises were implemented and analyzed by using the Mann–Whitney test, the Wilcoxon signed rank test and the general linear model to verify the effect of storytelling, the impact of time and the interaction between time and storytelling.FindingsThe findings show that storytelling helps children remember, understand and use the vocabulary of a certain topic and a specific grammatical structure, which are compatible with the vocabulary and the structure in a given story. It also supports students in forming the habit of using particular pairs of words correctly, such as “snake-hiss,” “zebra-bray.” Storytelling proved to be as effective as other teaching methods, such as games and exercises to make a contribution in helping students improve their reading-comprehending of separate sentences. However, time and continued language exposure played a pivotal role in students’ progress of decoding a gapped paragraph and filling in the gaps with appropriate words, no matter what teaching methods were used (storytelling or others).Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of the effect of storytelling on fostering students’ reading comprehension have implications for storytelling investigators in the field of teaching ESL. Investigators such as Wright (1995), Ellis and Brewster (1991, 2002, 2014), Cameron (2001), etc., strongly recommend the use of storytelling when teaching a foreign language. Then the findings of this paper contribute to confirm storytelling’s benefits in improving children’s reading abilities, especially in reading-comprehending separate sentences.Practical implicationsRegarding the practical implications of this case study, the findings of the role of storytelling and the role of time in improving students’ reading-comprehension have important implications for L2 English teachers, especially for the ones teaching English for young learners. Due to the fact that learners need time to become successful language users, who not only understand but also analyze and use language fluently without thinking much about the forms or the rules, teachers should not overanalyze language forms. Instead, they should provide learners with an inductive process of language exposure, including the use of storytelling. Storytelling provides young learners with language exposure and context-the natural environment to acquire language. Therefore, it can create a greater impact on learners for remembering vocabulary and understanding the meaning of a given text, as well as form some habits for foreign language learners, such as the use of some specific pairs of words, which has been shown in the findings of this project. This nurtures learner’s graduation to automaticity in using language and develops their reading-comprehension.Originality/valueThis paper is all originated from a study researching the effect of storytelling in helping students read and comprehend English by carrying out an experiment with two groups, namely, the control and the experimental in a semi private primary school in Tarragona, Spain. This study carries an important value, as it proves the effect of storytelling in improving students' ability of remembering vocabulary and understanding separate sentences, as well as points out the role of time in students' progress of mastering a foreign language.

Бастауыш сынып оқушыларының сөйлеу әрекетін дамытудың лингвистикалық негіздері

The article considers linguistic bases of primary school children’s development of speech activity. When forming speech activity, speech has a special role in the formation of the text. It was shown that speech activity requires is not making separate sentences, but making several sentences, as well as grammatical and semantic character and speech in the form of the whole text. Therefore, the final result of the formation of speech activity of primary school students should be a work, a story, that is, a text. The article analyzes the works of scientists on the role of text in language relations. In primary classes, the basic concepts of the text are presented, as well as scientific features are shown. It was also noted that through reading and discussing texts, you can learn to speak and write correctly. On their basis, ways of developing the speech of primary school students through text are provided.

Синтаксические особенности сложноподчиненных предложений русского языка с обратной подчинительной связью и способы их перевода на корейский язык

Russian complex with reverse subordinative relations between clauses are characterized by asymmetric relations between their form and content: the main clause is formed as a subordinate one because it includes the relation marker, namely the subordinate conjunction or conjunction-like word; the formally subordinate clause is in reality the main one according to its meaning. In the Russian language, this serves as syntactic means of expressiveness (sudden and unexpected change in circumstances, etc.), implicit modus meanings, or actualization of various relations. To preserve these meanings, various expanded means of expression of all meanings are used to translate such sentences into Korean: implicit modus meanings are made explicit with the help of independent predicative units, relations of immediate consecution are expressed via special lexical units, and some parts of Russian complex sentences may sometimes be represented as separate sentences in Korean in order to actualize the rhematic parts.

Cortical auditory responses index the contributions of different RMS-level-dependent segments to speech intelligibility

Previous behavioral and neurophysiological studies indicated that the use of an appropriate segmentation method to parse speech streams into meaningful chunks is of vital importance for the examination of sentence perception and intelligibility. Researchers have recently proposed speech segmentation methods employing the relative root-mean-square (RMS) intensity to separate sentences into segments with distinct intelligibility information. However, the effects of different RMS-level segments containing distinct intelligibility information on neural oscillations are not clear. Using scalp-recorded electroencephalography (EEG) data, we investigated the hypothesis that perceptual responses to different RMS-level-dependent speech segments would have distinct EEG characteristics derived from the power values at each frequency band and the relationship between acoustics and neural oscillations at different response time and spatial distribution. We analyzed the EEG power and synchronized neural oscillations corresponding to auditory temporal fluctuations when subjects listened to Mandarin sentences with only high-RMS-level segments and only middle-RMS-level segments preserved, respectively. The results showed significantly stronger EEG spectral power in the delta and theta bands for high-RMS-level stimuli compared with middle-RMS-level stimuli, indicating that the former carry more speech-parsing information at the syllabic level. Differences in neural synchronization were also found between the high- and middle-RMS-level stimuli, allowing for the derivation of intelligibility indices for cortical responses corresponding to different RMS-level segments. These findings suggest that both high- and middle-RMS-level segments drive delta and theta rhythms to track stimuli, and that neural oscillations employ different tracking patterns for these two segment types during auditory sentence processing. Moreover, they suggest that neural oscillations can serve as effective indices for the identification of reliable intelligibility factors in RMS-level-dependent stimuli.

Coordination of Mood Phrases in Korean

In this paper, I attempt to find the answers to the questions of what a speech act comes from and how a MP is interpreted. To do this, I discuss whether Mood Phrases (= MPs) can be conjoined or disjoined, and why they can or cannot, in matrix and embedded clauses. If a MP is used as a matrix one, it becomes a speech act. If some phenomena are observed only in matrix MPs, they are phenomena of speech acts. If some phenomena are observed in embedded MPs, they are phenomena of MPs. Based on these criteria, I claim that a speech act comes from the utterance of a MP as a separate sentence, not from the MP itself. This is also supported by the fact that there is no conjunction connective that combines two MPs. Based on these observations, I also claim that kuliko ‘and’ and hokun ‘or’ are coordinators of speech acts. Speech acts can be conjoined relatively freely, but they can be disjoined only if a preceding speech act can be re-interpreted as contributing to a larger speech act. And there is only one coordinator -kena ‘or’ that disjoins embedded MPs and there is no conjunction connective of embedded MPs. I explain all the observations based on the claim that the use of a MP presupposes an event or state that involves the meaning of the MP. It is an utterance event when a matrix MP is used and it is an event or state introduced in the context when an embedded MP is used. This allows us to explain that MPs can be disjoined only if the disjunction connective takes wide scope over a predicate that introduces an event or state that involves the MPs, and leads to the meaning of conjunction. Hence no conjunction connective of MPs is necessary. (Hongik University)

Libyan Students’ Use of English Coordinating Conjunctions in Their Writing

This study aimed at studying the use of English coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet and so) by Libyan university students, as learners of English as a foreign language. The data was collected from (34) students who studied at the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts at Misurata University. They were tested by two questions; filling gaps in seven separate sentences and writing two paragraphs. The students' answers and compositions were analyzed by identifying students' recognition of the semantic functions of the seven coordinating conjunctions, the frequency of occurrence of these conjunctions in their writing, and finally appropriate and inappropriate use of these conjunctions in writing paragraphs. The findings revealed that the majority of participants were unable to recognize the semantic functions of some unfamiliar conjunctions in the given sentences, tended to use some common coordinators than other ones, and employed conjunctions inappropriately in their writing.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DISCOURSE CONNECTIVES ANALYSIS IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The article analyses the historical origin of the most frequent discourse connectives in the English language. Two specific groups of discourse connectives: primary and secondary are studied. Lexically frozen connectives (primary) arose from parts of speech (particles, adverbs and prepositions) or combination of two or more words. Primary connectives were not primary connectives from their origin but they gained this status during their historical development through the process of grammaticalization. They are mainly one-word, lexically frozen, grammatical expressions with primary connecting function, whereas, secondary connectives are multiword structures containing lexical word or words, functioning as sentence elements or even separate sentences. The paper investigates the historical origin of the most common connectives in English and points out that they underwent a similar process to gain a status of present-day discourse connectives.

The effect of character contextual diversity on eye movements in Chinese sentence reading.

Chen, Huang, et al. (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2017) found that when reading two-character Chinese words embedded in sentence contexts, contextual diversity (CD), a measure of the proportion of texts in which a word appears, affected fixation times to words. When CD is controlled, however, frequency did not affect reading times. Two experiments used the same experimental designs to examine whether there are frequency effects of the first character of two-character words when CD is controlled. In Experiment 1, yoked triples of characters from a control group, a group matched for character CD that is lower in frequency, and a group matched in frequency with the control group, but higher in character CD, were rotated through the same sentence frame. In Experiment 2 each character from a larger set was embedded in a separate sentence frame, allowing for a larger difference in log frequency compared to Experiment 1 (0.8 and 0.4, respectively). In both experiments, early and later eye movement measures were significantly shorter for characters with higher CD than for characters with lower CD, with no effects of character frequency. These results place constraints on models of visual word recognition and suggest ways in which Chinese can be used to tease apart the nature of context effects in word recognition and language processing in general.

The needs, practice and effectiveness of education and professional training of convicts

With the implementation of a prison sentence as a separate sentence, the need has arisen for finding treatment methods of convicts that will contribute to the basic tendency - not to commit new criminal offenses. The aim of this paper was to describe the implementation of education in prison, convicts' needs for education, forms and theoretical basis on which the educational practice has been developed, and the assessment of educational activities effectiveness for convicts. There has been a constant search for the educational model that will meet the needs for education of a specific convict, and on the other hand, the needs of society and the labor market that a convict will join after release from prison. It is necessary for a convict, on the basis of the quality and level of acquired knowledge in prison, to take his place in the world of labor and in legal ways for obtaining subsistence goods in the free world. Parallel expectations of convicts' educational processes are directed towards their regimentation in prison during serving a sentence. Prison is primarily the penalty. An additional factor of modulation is the rationalization of costs of budgetary allocations in order to achieve a better result with the minimum resources spent. Two centuries of such search may seem a long period. However, the practice of punishment has been lasting for thousands of years. In this relatively short time period, in different penal systems, a range of forms of convicts' training has been recorded. They were more or less successful. There is still no irrefutable agreement that basic endeavor has been achieved. The data on the impact of education on reducing recidivism of convicts and the quality of post-penal reintegration are inconsistent. The search still continues.

From The Editors

From The Editors

Iranian EFL Learners’ Lexical Inferencing Strategies at Both Text and Sentence levels

Lexical inferencing is one of the most important strategies in vocabulary learning and it plays an important role in dealing with unknown words in a text. In this regard, the aim of this study was to determine the lexical inferencing strategies used by Iranian EFL learners when they encounter unknown words at both text and sentence levels. To this end, forty lower intermediate students were divided into two groups. For the first group, a text with 10 underlined words was given and for the second group, the same underlined words were given in separate sentences. The students were supposed to read the text and the sentences and to guess the meaning of the underlined words. Then some lexical inferencing strategies were given to them to determine which strategies they used in guessing the meaning of unknown words. The results showed that they used different strategies like using local context and word association in lexical inferencing and also they were more successful at the text level than the sentence one. The results also indicated that they were strategic learners using their own strategies including translation and cultural background knowledge to guess the meaning of the unknown words.

Text Structures Affect Reading Speed

The objective of this study was to investigate how the text structures affect reading speed in the same participants. Two types of text structures were used. The first text structure (TS1) had a total of 84 words that formed by 14 separate sentences with 6 words in each sentence (3-words per line). The second text structure (TS2) was written as 100-words passage with 10 continuous sentences. The average words in TS2 was 3 to 15 words per sentence. The sentences were constructed in Malay language and words selected from Malay textbook under The Malaysia Ministry of Education (MMOE). Twenty-five participants were asked to read aloud both text structures at random. Time to complete both texts was measured with stopwatch and recorded using audiotape. The error was noted in recording sheet if there were any omission, repeated, added or misread of word. Reading speed was calculated as words per minute (wpm). Mean reading speed in for TS1 was found to be faster than TS2 (t=10.61, p<0.01). In conclusion, text structures might affect reading speed among Malay-native speakers. Therefore, it was importance to consider about the text structure in designing the reading material for evaluation and monitoring the reading and vision rehabilitation.
 Keywords: reading speed, Malay sentence, text structure

Effective scheduling of looking and talking during rapid automatized naming.

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) is strongly related to literacy gains in developing readers, reading disabilities, and reading ability in children and adults. Because successful RAN performance depends on the close coordination of a number of abilities, it is unclear what specific skills drive this RAN-reading relationship. The current study used concurrent recordings of young adult participants' vocalizations and eye movements during the RAN task to assess how individual variation in RAN performance depends on the coordination of visual and vocal processes. Results showed that fast RAN times are facilitated by having the eyes 1 or more items ahead of the current vocalization, as long as the eyes do not get so far ahead of the voice as to require a regressive eye movement to an earlier item. These data suggest that optimizing RAN performance is a problem of scheduling eye movements and vocalization given memory constraints and the efficiency of encoding and articulatory control. Both RAN completion time (conventionally used to indicate RAN performance) and eye-voice relations predicted some aspects of participants' eye movements on a separate sentence reading task. However, eye-voice relations predicted additional features of first-pass reading that were not predicted by RAN completion time. This shows that measurement of eye-voice patterns can identify important aspects of individual variation in reading that are not identified by the standard measure of RAN performance. We argue that RAN performance predicts reading ability because both tasks entail challenges of scheduling cognitive and linguistic processes that operate simultaneously on multiple linguistic inputs.

Tofacitinib is not a biologic.

As the Global Medical Aff airs Gastroenterology Lead for tofacitinib at Pfi zer, I read with great interest the review by Dr Ungar and Dr Kopylov entitled “Advances in the development of new biologics in infl ammatory bowel disease (IBD)” [1]. In reading the article, I identifi ed a number of inaccuracies concerning tofacitinib, which I thought should be brought to the attention of the authors and your readers. Th roughout the article tofacitinib is described as being a “biologic”. Although it may be appropriate to compare the effi cacy and safety of tofacitinib to the existing biologic therapies used in IBD, tofacitinib is a synthetic small molecule JAK inhibitor and not a biologic agent. Tofacitinib was introduced along with descriptions of the biologics, including anti-integrins and ustekinumab. It would be more accurate if tofacitinib was split from these biologic agents and instead described in a separate sentence, since antiintegrins and ustekinumab are biologics and tofacitinib is not. In relation to safety events, in place of the current “Th e adverse eff ect profi le for tofacitinib appears to be similar to other biologics...”, it would be more accurate to state that “Th e adverse eff ect profi le for tofacitinib appears to be similar to that of biologics...”, thus separating tofacitinib from the biologic drug class. With respect to the discussion around immunogenicity and tofacitinib, because tofacitinib is a synthetic small molecule JAK inhibitor and not a biologic agent we would not expect there to be any immunogenicity. Hence, no specifi c studies of the immunogenicity of tofacitinib have been performed or are planned at present. Finally, we are nearing completion of a phase 3 development program of tofacitinib in ulcerative colitis [2,3] and we look forward to sharing the results of these studies with the gastroenterological community in the future.

Validation and Investigation of Sentence Parsing Strategies: a Study of EFL Learners Psych and Language Processing

Having a proper insight into understanding the human cognition in sentence processing strategies, this study explored the nature of Minimal Attachment and Late Closure strategies in relation to language proficiency levels. Facing the problem that why some EFL learners tend to parse differently (i.e., use Minimal Attachment and Late Closure Strategies), on one hand and the need to develop a reliable and valid instrument to do the respective investigation on the other hand, was the motive behind this study. By administering a Preliminary English Test (PET), three groups of Iranian adult EFL learners, both male and female were conventionally classified into three levels of proficiency. Three separate researcher-made sentence comprehension tests (each for one proficiency level) were then adopted as the main data collecting instruments through applying Think- Aloud Protocol in which all steps of instrument validation were taken. Findings revealed the use or better to say construct validity of various strategies. Meanwhile, the analyses revealed that the parsing strategies are, to some extent if not that much, associated with language proficiency levels, indicating that language proficiency level has some degree of effect on the participants use of parsing strategies as a whole, although findings on Minimal Attachment and Late Closure strategy use as two separate ones differed. While, there was not much effect of language proficiency level on Minimal Attachment strategy, the findings indicated a moderately large effect size on Late Closure strategy use and the three groups showed almost higher means on Late Closure strategy rather than the other one. Therefore, certain parsing strategies are associated with language proficiency level proving the fact that language proficiency level is an effective parameter as far as human cognition in language processing in general and sentence processing in particular are concerned. Moreover, not only is there relationship among language proficiency levels and the strategy use but the nature of relationship varies depending on language proficiency level and strategy type.

The mental image of the hepatica in modern Lithuanian prose

Hepatica (Hepatica nobilis) is a very well-known plant, which is common in Lithuania from early times. The works of art are filled with the images of it. The material for this article was collected from works of fiction and prose of the twenty-first century Lithuanian authors including novels, short stories, novellas, tales and other works of similar genres. The whole text is not analysed but rather separate sentences or their fragments – the collocations of hepatica. The material of this research contains 56 works of 46 prose writers, in which the hepatica is portrayed in various ways and purposes. In the compiled collocations the root žibut-/žibuč was located 76 times and žibuokl-/ was mentioned 40 times. The article investigates, which qualities of this plant rise as the most important ones, in other words, what concept of hepatica develops and how. It is found that in most cases Lithuanian prose writers emphasize on visible features of the plant – the colour and shape of the blossoms, their quality to wilt quickly and the like. The most dominant function of the image of hepatica is to express the idea of spring and because of that the parameters of time and space are used frequently in the collocations of hepatica – the exact time of emergence of the blossoms is defined and the growing places of hepaticas are indicated. The smell and purpose of the plant are also becoming quite significant components. It is ascertained that this plant is mostly depicted as the component of traditional Lithuanian scenery, however beside the domestic, realistic and concrete mental image of the plant it is often possible to identify the secondary meanings of the image as well (hepaticas help to express the state and feelings of a character, they become a symbol of faith and hope). Moreover, in the texts of prose there are plenty of cases when hepatica becomes a proper noun – through the process of onimization this title is transferred with a purpose to name people, domestic animals, streets or cafes.

An Appraisal of Sentencing in Bangladesh: Between Conviction and Punishment

Criminal justice system of Bangladesh neither allows any separate sentence hearing nor does it invite any pre-sentence report on the background of the accused when the trial court pronounces its judgments. Our criminal laws provide for numerical sentencing structure without mentioning any stratification of offence level. There is neither specific statutory sentencing policy nor is there any separate sentencing statute. In absence of sentencing guidelines as well as distinctive sentence hearing, the judges often award the sentences mechanically in the exercise of their individual sense of unbridled discretion. Consequently, diversity of sentencing decisions arises for similar category of offences. In practice, a widerange of mitigating and aggravating factors stemming from the case -laws essentially dominate the sentencing practice in Bangladesh. Non- custodial sentences including verbal sanction, conditional discharge, probation order, community service order, victim compensation order also remain largely unutilised while long custodial sentence and death penalty are frequently imposed in Bangladesh. It is also evident that the huge mass of sentencing factors as reflected in series of precedents, has rather developed in an inchoate manner. Nevertheless, it is possible to condense such sporadic sentencing factors into well- fashioned sentencing guidelines at behest of our apex Court. This article further argues that the accused should be given a separate sentence hearing opportunity so that award of punishment would become more meaningful exercise.

The Readable Delaware General Corporation Law

VisiLaw is a system for marking statutes to make them easier to read. This paper contains a short introduction to VisiLaw and a complete, VisiLaw-marked, copy of the Delaware General Corporation Law. The corporation law is current through end of the legislative session on June 30, 2021. It assumes that the Governor signs Senate Bill 113 on August 1, as scheduled. VisiLaw markings visually separate sentences and clauses within sentences, making it easy to see where each begins and ends. The ability to see sentence structure at a glance makes it possible to read clauses one at a time, without losing orientation in the overall structure. Within each constituent clause, underlining identifies a skeletal sentence – subject, verb, direct object and a few other words. The underlining enables the reader to quickly get the gist, and understand the structure, of the constituent clauses. The Readable Delaware General Corporation Law is published in hard copy and available on Amazon.

The Analysis of English-Persian Legal Translations Based on Systemic Functional Grammar Approach (SFG)

This paper tries to analyze the errors arising in translation of legal documents from English to Persian. Most of the researchers conducted on explaining the complexity of legal language, has shown that vocabulary and terminology has justifiably received the most attention, as lexis fulfills the symbolic or representational function of language better than any other linguistic component. Consequently it has been supposed that in legal translation, just finding appropriate equivalent for vocabulary and terminology is sufficient. But in this paper, which examines the errors occurred in English –Persian translation of legal documents, the translated text will be analyzed at sentence level based on a meaning-based functional approach ; i.e. Systemic Functional Grammar Approach (SFG) to see whether we can apply it as an objective criteria for error analysis of translated legal documents & how. For this purpose, nine error categories were considered; including interpersonal, textual, logical and experiential metafunctions and in order to understand experiential meaning, it was broken into three functional constituents; that is participant, process and circumstance. Further to the above categories, three other issues, including mistranslation, omission and word choice were considered, as well. Then while dividing the legal text into separate sentences, each sentence was analyzed according to these categories. The results of this research show that SFG approach would be an appropriate criteria and scale for evaluating the accuracy of the legal documents translation, not only for legal translators in producing an accurate and perfect translation, but also for teachers in evaluating the students’ translation abilities, objectively.

L1-L2 sentence translation in classroom grammar tests

L1�L2 translation of separate sentences is one kind of task format used by mainstream EFL teachers to assess their learners' grammatical accuracy. Aimed at improving teacher-written translation items, this study analyses linguistic features potentially causing such decontextualized cues (and their target responses) to sound odd or untypical of naturally used language. The findings show that some items elicit structures that are marked in their contexts, others are translationally overchallenging, and yet others have textual flaws. The following research method was employed: English-Hebrew bilinguals, mostly EFL teachers, translated seven cues from Hebrew to English. This resulted in numerous translation options for each cue. The analysis of these multiple translations and their comparison with corpus frequency data yielded most of the above-mentioned findings. In addition, another group of Hebrew-English bilinguals translated the previous group's most frequent translations back into Hebrew. This added information about the textual quality of the Hebrew cue.