Vocabulary Development Research Articles

Enhancing Emotional Intelligence of Adult Learners in Online EFL Teaching: Insights from Vietnamese Educators

This study investigates the strategies employed by Vietnamese EFL teachers to enhance emotional intelligence (EI) in adult learners within online learning environments. Utilizing a qualitative research design grounded in Mayer and Salovey’s model of emotional intelligence and Knowles’s theory of andragogy, the study involved semi-structured interviews with ten EFL teachers from two Vietnamese educational institutions. The thematic analysis of the interview data revealed several key strategies: reflective practices, interactive activities, technology integration, personalized feedback, collaborative learning, integration of real-life scenarios, self-awareness activities, development of emotional vocabulary, and creation of emotionally supportive environments. The findings illustrate a multifaceted approach to enhancing EI in online language education, highlighting the innovative adaptation of traditional classroom strategies to the digital realm. The study’s unique contribution lies in its focus on the Vietnamese context, providing insights into how cultural nuances shape online teaching strategies for EI enhancement. The implications of these findings are significant for the field of EFL education, suggesting the need for holistic teaching approaches that integrate emotional competencies alongside linguistic skills.

Cross-sectoral interventions to promote health-supportive urban environments

Abstract Background As dealing with the complexity of urban living conditions becomes more and more evident and urgent, it is fundamental to promote cross-sectoral interventions that allow cities to become more inclusive and supportive of health. The Emilia-Romagna region, Italy, has promoted a participatory initiative to structurally integrate health into urban planning tools, identifying a framework of tailored urban indicators linked to locally perceived population health issues. Methods Through internal discussion and systematic literature research, a set of urban planners, epidemiologists, and public health experts from regional offices, local health services, universities, and environmental protection agencies identified the urban and health dimensions most suitable for embedding population health into city planning. The result was summarised in a preliminary working paper, which included a matrix of associations between urban features and health dimensions framed according to the DPSEEA framework. Its applicability was then tested in a participatory process (March-May 2024) involving urban planners and public health departments of 7 different sized municipalities. Results A group of epidemiologists identified local-level computable indicators for the health dimensions already included in the matrix or added at request. Each municipality focused on specific topics based on local priorities: 3 groups assessing their already-approved urban plans and looking for computable urban indicators; the others integrating their under-construction plans with local health indicators. Conclusions The need for professional contamination and cross-sectoral interventions is significant. Epidemiological support is pivotal in integrating different professional languages and reading health data. The outputs of this experience will contribute to a technical document outlining how to incorporate health promotion into urban planning tools and practice while actively considering the local context. Key messages • Although the development of a common vocabulary can be difficult, multidisciplinary collaboration is essential in promoting a model for integrating health promotion into urban planning. • Local municipalities’ involvement in the experimentation can improve the model’s applicability by taking into account territorial specificities.

Follow-up of expressive language and general development at 12, 18 and 36 months for children with no canonical babbling at 10 months

ABSTRACT Little is known about the developmental trajectories in children who do not use canonical babbling (CB) at 10 months. The aim was to examine how speech, language, cognitive and motor abilities developed in children without CB. For 15 children identified as not having CB, consonant production, expressive vocabulary and general development were assessed at 12, 18 and 36 months from audio–video recordings. Twelve (79%) children still lacked CB at 12 months. At 18 months, six (40%) had parent-reported expressive vocabulary results below the 10th percentile, and two (14%) did not use dental/alveolar stops. The percentage of consonants correct for the group was at the level of peers at 36 months (89%, SD 0.17), but the group had fewer established target consonants than age norms. Most children had a small expressive vocabulary in comparison with Swedish age norms for younger children as well as with age-matched norms for other Nordic languages. The general development (Bayley-III) for three children (21%) who did not use speech was 1–2 SD below the average range in at least one domain (cognitive, language or motor), but the results for the whole group were within the average range. In conclusion, the heterogeneity in early consonant development in the study group resembles that of children in clinical groups with known risk for speech and language difficulties and the expressive vocabulary resembles that of children with delayed expressive vocabulary. For about one-fifth of the children, the absence of canonical babbling at age 10 months could be seen as an early sign of a more comprehensive developmental disability.

Enhancing Language Acquisition in Children from Lower Socioeconomic Backgrounds: The Role of Parental Involvement

Abstract: Early language acquisition is fundamental to a childs future academic success. The development of vocabulary and oral storytelling skills at a young age serves as a strong foundation for later achievements in overall literacy. Disparities in language abilities become apparent by kindergarten and tend to persist throughout a childs educational journey. Therefore, prioritizing early language development is crucial to ensuring that all children could reach their full potential. This literature review examines three effective interventions - the 3Ts Home Visiting Curriculum, Too Small to Fail, and the STELLA curriculum - designed to improve language acquisition and development in children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. It provides brief descriptions of each intervention, analyzes the underlying psychological principles of language acquisition and development, and considers the implications of these global approaches. Parental involvement is crucial in creating and sustaining the success of these programs. Future directions to enhance the effectiveness, accessibility, and inclusivity of language development interventions for targeted children are explored.

Complex meanings shape early noun and verb vocabulary structure and learning.

Verbs and nouns vary in many ways-including in how they are used in language and in the timing of their early learning. We compare the distribution of semantic features that comprise early acquired verb and noun meanings and measure their effect on learning. First, couched in prior literature, we use semantic feature data to establish that features pattern on a hierarchy of complexity, with perceptual features being less complex than other features like encyclopaedic features. Second, given overall semantic and syntactic differences between nouns and verbs, we hypothesize that the preference for directly perceptible features observed for nouns will be attenuated for verbs. Building on prior work using semantic features and semantic networks in nouns, we find that compared to early learned nouns (N = 359), early learned verbs (N = 103) have meanings disproportionately built from complex information inaccessible to the senses. Third, we find that 16- to 30-month-old children's early noun and verb vocabularies (N = 3,804) show semantic relationships that differ in their use of this complex information from the beginning of vocabulary development. Last, we find that the complexity of nouns' and verbs' meanings affects their typical order of learning in early vocabulary development. Complexity differs in early noun and verb meanings, affects the semantic structure of children's vocabularies, and shapes the course of word learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN VIỆC THỰC HÀNH PHÁT TRIỂN VỐN TỪ CHO TRẺ CHẬM NÓI 18-24 THÁNG CỦA GIÁO VIÊN MẦM NON TẠI HÀ NỘI

This study focuses on evaluating the impact of resources, the coordination between preschool teachers and other educational forces, and the individual capabilities of teachers in facilitating/supporting vocabulary development for children with delayed speech aged 18-24 months in Hanoi, involving 255 teachers. Grounded in theories of early childhood education, the research employs quantitative methodology through data collection from questionnaires, aiming to understand the methods and factors influencing this process. The results not only provide a comprehensive view of language development practices for children with delayed speech but also propose strategies for improving training and professional development programs for teachers. Thus, the study highlights the importance of enhancing resources and improving coordination among stakeholders to best support children's language development, while also contributing to the formulation of appropriate policy recommendations.

Testing the relationship between preferences for infant-directed speech and vocabulary development: A multi-lab study.

From early on, infants show a preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS), and exposure to IDS has been correlated with language outcome measures such as vocabulary. The present multi-laboratory study explores this issue by investigating whether there is a link between early preference for IDS and later vocabulary size. Infants' preference for IDS was tested as part of the ManyBabies 1 project, and follow-up CDI data were collected from a subsample of this dataset at 18 and 24 months. A total of 341 (18 months) and 327 (24 months) infants were tested across 21 laboratories. In neither preregistered analyses with North American and UK English, nor exploratory analyses with a larger sample did we find evidence for a relation between IDS preference and later vocabulary. We discuss implications of this finding in light of recent work suggesting that IDS preference measured in the laboratory has low test-retest reliability.

The Effect of Extensive and Intensive Reading Strategies on EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Improvement

This study investigated the impact of extensive and intensive reading strategies on vocabulary development on EFL learners. The study was conducted at English department, Education Faculty, Kandahar University. The design of the study was inferential experimental, where pre- and post-tests were used to measure improvement in vocabulary improvement. The subjects of the study were first-year freshmen and night shift students. A total of 50 Afghan EFL students were selected based on their performance on placement test. The participants in the experimental group got extensive reading, and the control group got intensive reading, respectively. The experimental group and control group received 100-minutes per week. The collected data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results of the study revealed that the vocabulary was improved from 83 to 93 in extensive reading and from 81 to 92 in intensive reading, which shows that there is significance increase in scores for intensive and extensive reading respectively.

Late Talkers can generalise trained labels by object shape similarities, but not unfamiliar labels.

Late talkers (LTs) exhibit delayed vocabulary development, which might stem from a lack of a typical word learning strategy to generalise object labels by shape, called the 'shape bias'. We investigated whether LTs can acquire a shape bias and whether this accelerates vocabulary learning. Fourteen LTs were randomly allocated to either a shape training group (Mage = 2.76 years, 6 males), which was taught that objects similar in shape have the same name, or a control group (Mage = 2.61 years, 4 males), which was taught real words without any focus on object shape. After seven training sessions, children in the shape training group generalised trained labels by shape (d = 1.28), but not unfamiliar labels. Children in the control group extended all labels randomly. Training did not affect expressive vocabulary.

Chinese mothers use idioms in shared book reading: A predictor for children's Chinese vocabulary growth?

Idioms play an important role in language; however, little research has examined idioms in children's natural language settings. This study explored idioms usage in maternal talk during mother-child shared book reading and its relation to children's vocabulary development. Thirty-three Chinese children in Norway (aged 3;0-5;5) and their mothers participated. We observed shared reading at the onset of the study and assessed children's receptive and expressive vocabulary in Chinese three times across one year. Results demonstrated that mothers used an average of 1.8 idioms and explained one-third of the idioms. Maternal idiom usage was correlated with their talk amount and lexical diversity. Individual growth modeling revealed that the number of idioms mothers used predicted the growth of children's receptive vocabulary in Chinese. We speculate that idiom usage could be an effective and understudied marker of parental linguistic sophistication. This study underscores the importance of idiom exposure in children's language environment.

The Effects of ‘Dialogic Reading’ on the Development of Mental State Vocabulary in Children with ASD

Objectives: Children with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulties in understanding thoughts, intentions, and beliefs of others, which are related to the development of theory of mind. The purpose of this study was to facilitate the production of mental state vocabulary related to theory of mind in these children through ‘Dialogic book-reading’ intervention and to verify the intervention and generalization effects.Methods: A “PEER” strategy was conducted with children with ASD. The pattern of mental state vocabulary production was analyzed through a picture task, and generalization effects were examined using a parent-report checklist.Methods: A “PEER” strategy was conducted with children with ASD. The pattern of mental state vocabulary production was analyzed through a picture task, and generalization effects were examined using a parent-report checklist.Conclusion: This study provides evidence for the intervention and generalization effects of the interactive book reading strategy on the production of mental state vocabulary in children with ASD, highlighting the significance of using this strategy in clinical settings for training theory of mind in children with ASD.

DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTERACTIVE WEBSITE WITH DIDACTIC GAMES TO ENHANCE VOCABULARY IN YOUNG STUDENTS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES

The article investigates the development of a website that includes interactive didactic games designed to improve the vocabulary of primary schoolchildren with intellectual disabilities. It describes the importance of developing vocabulary in children with intellectual disabilities and shows how the game approach can be an effective tool for teaching and developing speech in this category of children. The process of developing a website with didactic games is considered, which includes the selection of appropriate software, interface design, development of interactive tasks and games, as well as testing and improvement of the website. In particular, the article discusses methods and approaches to creating games aimed at developing lexical skills, expanding vocabulary and improving communication skills in children with intellectual disabilities. The advantages of using interactive didactic games in the educational process of junior schoolchildren with intellectual disabilities are highlighted. They stimulate children's interest in learning words and expanding their vocabulary, develop cognitive and speech skills, improve memory and concentration, and increase motivation and enjoyment of learning. A game-based approach can keep children interested, motivated, and effective, helping them to develop their language skills and achieve greater academic success. The website was created on the wix platform. The collection of didactic games was developed on the LearningApps platform. There are various types of tasks, for example quizzes, puzzles, crosswords, matching exercises, etc. Images for didactic games were generated by playground.ai artificial intelligence, which opens up new opportunities for creating visually appealing games and tasks. The importance of developing website with interactive didactic games for the development of vocabulary of younger students with intellectual disabilities is emphasized, they can become an effective tool for teaching and developing speech in children of this category, contributing to their success in learning and overall development.

아동의 표현어휘 지연 예측 요인 연구: 3세 말늦은 아동과 정상 언어발달 아동의 가정환경의 질 차이를 중심으로

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of home environment quality on children’s expressive vocabulary development by comparing the home environments of 3-year-old late talkers and typically developing children. The study used the data of 1,723 3-year-old children from the Korean Children’s Panel Study 4th wave data (2011) of the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE). Frequency analysis, t-test, and logistic regression were performed to analyze the data. The Early Childhood HOME(ECHOME) was used to measure the quality of home environment and a new variable ‘overall home environment’ was created to represent the average of the six sub-domains of home environment quality. T-test results indicated significant differences in the overall home environment quality and every sub-domain between 3-year-old late talking children and typically developing children. Logistic regression analysis revealed that the overall home environment quality at the age of 3 was a significant predictor distinguishing the two groups. When all six sub-domains were included as an independent variable, learning materials and diversity demonstrated significant influences. This study emphasizes the significance of home environment quality as a predictor of expressive vocabulary delay and identifies specific sub-domains that influence children's language development.

Modeling individual differences in vocabulary development: A large-scale study on Japanese heritage speakers.

This study examines when the vocabulary knowledge of Japanese heritage speakers (HSs; N = 427, Mage = 9.96, female = 213) begins to diverge from monolingual counterparts (N = 136, Mage = 6.69, female = 65) and what factors explain individual differences in HS development. Vocabulary of HSs began to diverge from 5.61 years and this difference lasted until they were young adults. We also administered a fit-for-purpose questionnaire in 2021-2023 and identified six experiential latent factors: Holiday, School, Community, Proficiency, Literacy, and Home. Structural modeling indicates that Holiday predicted vocabulary scores, while Holiday and Literacy predicted Proficiency. Our findings highlight the importance of immersion experiences and literacy engagement for heritage language development.

Tiktok Lexical Contents in Use: Attitudes among Bachelor of Arts in English Language (ABEL) Students

The rise of TikTok as an educational tool has opened new avenues for vocabulary development among its users. This study explored the vocabulary levels and attitudes of 90 first- and second-year AB English Language (ABEL) students towards TikTok videos containing vocabulary content. Participants engaged voluntarily in a mixed-method research design, incorporating pretests and posttests, treatment, and interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using T-tests, frequency, and percentage, while qualitative data underwent thematic analysis to uncover participants' cognitive, affective, and behavioral attitudes. The findings revealed a notable improvement in the participants' vocabulary knowledge, as demonstrated by higher posttest scores following the use of TikTok videos. Despite some challenges with the application, participants generally held positive attitudes towards the treatment, recognizing its contribution to their vocabulary enhancement. The study suggests that both English teachers and students could effectively use TikTok videos with lexical content for vocabulary teaching and learning. Additionally, the study highlights the potential for future research to investigate the role of TikTok videos in aiding non-English speakers with foreign language acquisition and other language skills, as this study focused solely on vocabulary development among English language majors.

WASHBACK EFFECTS OF ONLINE ASSESSING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION IN NARRATIVE TEXT

The Covid-19 pandemic has altered the educational landscape. This is due to the fact that traditional classroom learning has been replaced with online learning. Even if the learning and assessment take place at home, teachers must be able to offer an effective learning process and assessment. The impact of testing on teaching and learning is known as washback. Teachers appear to play a significant part in developing different types of washback by examining the probable positive and negative washback that tests may cause at the micro and macro levels. In other words, the teachers' beliefs play an important role in influencing the washback effect. This study aims at explaining washback effect of online students’ assessment on reading comprehension in narrative text. Secondly, to describe students’ engagement in following online learning and assessing of reading comprehension. It employed qualitative method and descriptive research design. Data collection techniques used observation, online reading test, interview, and documentation. Meanwhile, data analysis techniques implemented data reduction, data display, data verification. The research participants were 32 the seventh graders of an Islamic secondary school in Semarang regency. The results show that narrative reading text used folklore digital storytelling namely The Crying Stone. The reading comprehension test consisted of forty items, they were short answer, close test, true or false, vocabulary development, matching, and references. Based on the data, there are two types of washback effects namely negative washback effect and positive washback effect. Positive and negative washback effect covered formative assessment and summative assessment. They are included assessment as learning, assessment for learning, and assessment of learning. Positive washback effects made students have eagerness to be autonomous learners. Students had high motivation and well-prepared in joining reading class. Meanwhile students had difficulties in learning and follow the reading assessment because of bad internet connection as negative washback. Sometimes some parents were not able to buy internet data package.

The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes.

There is robust evidence that infants' gestures and vocalisations and caregivers' contingent responses predict later child vocabulary. Recent studies suggest that dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' responses are more robust predictors of children's vocabularies than these behaviors separately. Previous studies have not yet systematically compared different types of dyadic combinations. This study aimed to compare the predictive value of (a) frequencies of infants' behaviors (vocalisations, points, and shows+gives) regardless of caregivers' responses, (b) frequencies of infants' behaviors that elicited verbal responses, (c) frequencies of infants' behaviors that elicited multimodal responses, and (d) frequencies of infants' behaviors that did not elicit any responses from caregivers. We examined 114 caregiver-infant dyads at 9-11months and children's concurrent and longitudinal vocabulary outcomes at 2-4years. We found that infants' points elicited a large proportion of verbal responses from caregivers which were related to children's later receptive vocabularies. We also found that only shows+gives that elicited caregivers' responses related to infants' concurrent gesture repertoires. In contrast, infants' behaviors that did not elicit responses negatively related to child vocabulary. The results highlight the importance of examining dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' responses during interactions when examining relations to children's vocabulary development.

The development of morphological awareness and vocabulary: What influences what?

Abstract The awareness of words’ morphological structure has been thought to allow generalizing meaning to other, similarly constructed words. Conversely, a large vocabulary is thought to facilitate the recognition of words’ morphological regularities, thereby contributing to morphological awareness. For this reason, morphological awareness and vocabulary have been suggested to be reciprocally associated across development. We followed 242 (girls = 119) Norwegian preschoolers (Mage = 5.5 years) from preschool through Grade 2 and examined the cross-lagged relations between morphological awareness (inflections and derivations) and vocabulary (receptive and expressive). Our results confirm that the traditional cross-lagged panel model shows significant cross-lagged relations between morphological awareness and vocabulary, as previous studies have shown. However, no cross-lagged relations were found when we accounted for longitudinal measured stability through a cross-lagged panel model with lag-2 paths or unmeasured stability through the random intercept cross-lagged panel model. We found that approximately 50% of the variation in morphology and vocabulary was due to highly stable and invariant factors across grades. We discuss how the significant cross-lagged relations found in previous studies could have been due to their not accounting for the right type of stability when using longitudinal panel data.

Using Duolingo in Teaching and Learning Vocabulary: A Systematic Review

This systematic review examines the extant literature on the efficacy of the Duolingo application for vocabulary development in instructed second language (L2) contexts. Drawing on several empirical studies, the review synthesises findings related to (a) the comparative effectiveness of Duolingo versus traditional pedagogies, (b) the impact of Duolingo on learner motivation and engagement, and (c) practical implications for classroom integration. While the majority of evidence attests to measurable gains in receptive vocabulary knowledge, the findings must be interpreted with caution due to methodological limitations, including small sample sizes, short intervention periods, and construct underrepresentation. The motivational appeal of Duolingo's gamified interface emerges as a prominent theme, corroborated by self-report data. However, the limited research employing psychometrically robust motivational measures precludes definitive conclusions about the temporal stability and transferability of this motivational effect. Theoretically, the provision of individualised feedback aligns with interactionist theories, yet the restricted opportunities for the negotiation of meaning raise doubts about the depth of lexical engagement. Pedagogically, the reviewed studies advocate the careful integration of Duolingo as a supplementary tool within formal instructional contexts. However, optimal implementation strategies remain unspecified, necessitating further classroom-based research employing mixed-methods designs. Significant gaps are identified, including the lack of investigations into the differential impacts of Duolingo's features, vocabulary transfer to authentic communication, and the development of self-regulated learning strategies.

Boosting Young EFL Learners' English Vocabulary Acquisition by Utilizing Puppet Pictures as Storytelling Media

Students' interest becomes the most important aspect of successful teaching and learning. One way to attract students' interest in participating in the lesson is by using fun learning media like puppet pictures. This study explores how employing puppet pictures as a storytelling and sharing medium can improve students' vocabulary acquisition. The present study employed a pre-experimental approach to assess the vocabulary proficiency level achieved through puppet image storytelling media. The group, which had a pre-test and post-test, was considered a single sample for teaching using puppet visuals and storytelling medium. The research subjects consisted of first-grade students enrolled at Ariya Metta Elementary School. The evaluation instruments utilized consisted of a pre-test and post-test, designed based on phase A of the Merdeka curriculum. These instruments were employed to evaluate the enhancement or notable increase in vocabulary scores, employing puppet image narrative media. The pre-test and post-test data were calculated using a statistical analysis program. The data statistics from the descriptive analysis and matched sample statistics showed that the average score of the pre-test (57.86) increased to the post-test score (88.57). In addition, the paired sample T-test yielded a p-value of 0.000, less than the significance level of 0.05. The result indicates that the Null Hypothesis (Ho) was rejected, and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. Ultimately, puppet storytelling media had a significant impact on enhancing pupils' vocabulary development.