It is important that the language in textbooks for foreign language learners reflects the language that the learners would encounter in real life. For this reason, the presence of the thousand most common nouns in two Swedish textbooks in Spanish for upper secondary school is observed in this study. Furthermore, this study aims to examine how these nouns occur in order to determine if their pattern of occurence favours the learning and consolidation of words. The main materials that have been used are A Frequency Dictionary of Spanish by Davies (2006) and the word search program available in the digital versions of the textbooks. The results show that the presence of the thousand most common Spanish nouns does reflect the frequency information presented in the frequency dictionary but not all thousand nouns are included. It has been concluded that the frequency information that Davies (2006) presents should only be one of many variables to bear in mind when it comes to what words to include in the textbooks since the frequency dictionary is based on a corpus that does not always reflect the type of language a beginner student in Spanish would need. The studied nouns are to a large extent repeated implicitly in the two textbooks. In order for the students to obtain more profound knowledge of words the textbooks would probably need to offer more possibilities for explicit repetition.

The purpose of the study was to determine possible relationships existing between elementary student retention and academic performance, as measured by standardized achievement tests legally mandated by state initiatives in minimum competency testing, for a four year period beginning with the year culminating in retention. The study also attempted to determine if the relationship is affected by the grade level of retention, gender, ethnicity, or mental aptitude.Subjects of the study were 220 elementary students from a large metropolitan school district in central Indiana, half of whom had been retained in grades one or two, and half of whom were randomly selected and had never been retained. Using achievement data collected from the MacMillan/McGraw-Hill standardized achievement tests, CTB/4 and CAT E/F, the relationships of achievement scores in reading, language expression, and mathematics between and within the two groups were analyzed. Mental aptitude data from The Test of Cognitive Skills (CTB MacMillan/McGrawHill), and data on gender and ethnicity, were also examined to determine the effect of these variables. Multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis were employed to analyze the various relationships using the P<.05 level of significance.The study found that (a) for the longitudinal period, retained student performance did not reach the-mean of the promoted group; (b) grade level of retention yielded different longitudinal patterns of performance, but did improve the relationship between retained and promoted student performance in either grade; and (c) mental aptitude, but not gender and ethnicity, was significantly related to student performance.The study concluded that (a) retention is not effective in raising substandard performance to promoted peer levels over a four year period, (b) retention is most effective for improving performance in the repeated year, (c) students retained at grade two maintain performance gains better than students retained in grade one, and (d) mental aptitude plays a significant role in the evaluation of the effectiveness of retention. / Department of Educational Leadership

In this thesis, we answer several questions about the behaviour of prover-verifier interactions under parallel repetition when quantum information is allowed, and the verifier acts independently in them. We first consider the case in which a value is associated with each of the possible outcomes of an interaction. We prove that it is not possible for the prover to improve on the optimum average value per repetition by repeating the protocol multiple times in parallel. We look then at games in which the outcomes are classified into two types, winning outcomes and losing outcomes. We ask what is the optimal probability for the prover of winning at least k times out of n parallel repetitions, given that the optimal probability of winning when only one repetition is considered is p. A reasonable conjecture for the answer would be the answer when it is optimal for the prover to act independently. This is known to be the correct answer when k=n. We will show how this cannot be extended to the general case, presenting an example of an interaction with k=1,n=2 in which p is approximately 0.85, but it is possible to always win at least once. We will then give some upper bounds on the optimal probability for the prover of winning k times out of n parallel repetitions. These bounds are expressed as a function of p. Finally, we connect our results to the study of error reduction for quantum interactive proofs using parallel repetition.

本研究旨在探討不同方式的複誦教學對台灣國中生聽力理解、 聽的字彙、了解自己說的英語和英語之間的差異及自發性的練習聽和說四方面之影響。本研究結果希望對英文老師在複誦教學上有所啟示和幫助。 台北市某國中二年級兩班共64位學生參與這項研究,他們被分為實驗組和控制組。學期初,受試者接受全民英檢初級聽力前測,依據該成績, 分成實驗組和控制組兩組群,該兩組群又細分為高中低三組群。受試者在接受全民英檢初級聽力前測後,施以不同之複誦教學。實驗組之教學方式為讓學生先聽一段文章或一段對話,第二次則聽完句子再跟著複誦所聽到的句子,第三次則看著聽力稿再複誦一次並從中了解自己所複誦的句子或片語和所聽到的有何不同。控制組之教學方式為傳統的複誦教學;方式為讓學生先看著聽力稿聽一段文章或一段對話,第二次則聽完再跟著聽力稿複誦,第三次則亦看著聽力稿再複誦一次, 並從中了解自己所複誦的句子或片語和所聽到的有何不同。16週之後,他們接受聽力後測。除接受後測外,實驗組還接受問卷調查和訪談。 實驗結果顯示實驗組的聽力方面之進步大於控制組。其中實驗組平均數差異檢定以達到顯著水準(t=2.666, p=.010);實驗組三組中,以中組群及低組群進步最多,平均數差異檢定以達到顯著水準(中組群t=3.318, p=.003; 低組群t=.283, p=.016)。此外從問卷調查和訪談得知:實驗組大部份的學生對此教學法皆持肯定的態度。且中組群及高組群對聽的字彙、了解自己說的英語和英語之間的差異及皆持正面的看法。低分組則較希望老師能適時的說明及指導。但在自發性的練習聽和說的能力只有高組群持正面的看法。本文根據研究結果,提出英語教學上之運用以及未來研究之建議。 / The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of different approaches to “listen and repeat” strategy teaching on listening comprehension of junior high school students in Taiwan. “Listen and repeat” activity is often practiced in English class; however, its skill and training are often neglected by most English teachers and thus less studied. In this study, an experiment is conducted to examine the effect that different procedures of repetition strategy instruction have on listening comprehension, on the awareness of the gap between students’ output and the aural input, on “sound-to-script” vocabulary, and on students’ automaticity in listening and speaking. Sixty-four students, taught by the researcher, from two classes of 8th grade at a junior high school in Taipei City, participate in this study. They are divided into the experimental group and the control group. At the beginning of the semester, the researcher gives the two classes an English listening comprehension test at the GEPT elementary level. According to their scores in the test, the subjects are further divided into high, middle, and low proficiency levels. Then, the experimental and the control groups are taught in different methods. The control group is taught to "listen and repeat" with the listening scripts; the experimental group is taught to “listen and repeat” after the aural stimuli only and later to check the listening scripts to see if there is any gap between the listening input and their oral output and if there is any gap between their listening vocabulary and the written vocabulary.After 16 weeks, all of the subjects take a listening comprehension posttest. In addition to the listening comprehension test, the experimental group is also asked to fill in a questionnaire. Later, some interviews are conducted. The results show that “listen and repeat” after the aural stimuli indeed enhances the subjects’ listening comprehension ability. The experimental group significantly outperforms the control group (t=2.666, p=.010). Besides, in terms of proficiency levels, the experimental middle and low subgroups significantly outperform those of the control group (experimental middle subgroup: t=3.318, p=.003; experimental low subgroup: t=.283, p=.016). Moreover, the questionnaire and interview results show that most of the students like this way of “listen and repeat” practice though it is cognitively demanding and challenging. Furthermore, experimental middle and high subgroups benefit more from the strategy. They can better notice the gap between their output and the aural input and have better correspondence between their listening vocabulary and the written vocabulary. But the strategy facilitates only high proficiency students’ automaticity in listening and speaking. The low subgroup, on the other hand, needs teachers’ instructions and feedback more. Based on the above results, some pedagogical implications for English teachers and suggestions for learning strategy instructions are provided at the end of the study

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on November 27, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2008. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-91). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis--Catholic Univ. of America. / Bibliography: p. 100-108.

Thesis (M.A.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2004. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Philip Gaines. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-82).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Education, December 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-259). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 1975. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-211).