The purpose of this study was to determine whether language aptitude and the use of language strategies predict pronunciation gains in second language (L2) acquisition. A second goal was to determine whether these factors differed depending on whether learning occurred in an English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL) learning context. Eighty-six ESL students in the United States and one hundred EFL students in China were asked to take the Pimsleur language aptitude test. The top 15 or 16 and lowest 15 or 16 scorers on this test from each group were asked to complete a test of pronunciation proficiency and a pronunciation strategies inventory at the beginning and end of a 10-week speaking class in which they were enrolled. The pre and post pronunciation tests were rated and pronunciation proficiency gains in global foreign accent, fluency, comprehensibility and accuracy were compared to both Pimsleur test scores and use of pronunciation strategies before and after training. Results indicated that general language aptitude did not predict pronunciation gains regardless of type of setting (ESL or EFL), but that auditory aptitude may be linked to pronunciation proficiency. Analyses revealed that specific pronunciation strategies were strong predictors of pronunciation gain for comprehensibility and accuracy gains. The findings for this study suggest that pronunciation strategies seem to play a bigger role in pronunciation improvement than language aptitude and are effective in both ESL and EFL settings.

Citation analysis, which provides insights into the influence of particular scholarly work in a field of study, can also show epistemological "turns" through patterns of citations over time. This study explored the impact of postmethod epistemology on the shared knowledge of the English-as-a-second-language (L2) education community over a 26-year period. The approach consisted of tabulating and analyzing citations in 125 articles from two major journals, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Quarterly (TESOL Qrtrly) and English Language Teaching Journal (ELT). The time period covered was 1994, when the term postmethod was introduced in TESOL Qrtrly, through 2019. Attention went to the following questions for each journal and for both journals together: (i) who is the most influential of the three major postmethod authors, B. Kumaravadivelu, Richard Allwright, or Hans Stern? (ii) what was the most cited postmethod publication? and (iii) have there been patterns over time for citations of postmethod authors and publications and for the use of the term postmethod? Of the three postmethod authors, Kumaravadivelu was the most cited in the two journals combined. For TESOL Qrtrly, Kumaravadivelu was the most cited, and Stern was second. For ELT, Kumaravadivelu and Allwright had an equal number of citations, and both surpassed Stern. Of the 23 postmethod publications by these scholars, the most highly cited in both journals was Kumaravadivelu's 1994 article "The Postmethod Condition." It was the most cited in TESOL Quarterly, followed by Stern's 1983 book Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. In ELT, Allwright and Bailey's 1991 book, Focus on the Language Classroom, was the most cited followed by Allwright's 2003 article, "Exploratory Practice: Rethinking Practitioner Research," published in Language Teaching Research. Trend analyses for citations in TESOL Quarterly and ELT showed curvilinear patterns with a peak in postmethod citations in the two journals in the mid-2000s. In regard to the term postmethod, patterns suggested that it did not become mainstream in the two journals that were studied. This inquiry, which was focused on two major journals in L2 English education, provided some details about the impact of postmethod epistemology in a period that some scholars have called the "postmethod era." Through citation analysis, the study helps to situate postmethod epistemology historically.

A team at Goddard Space Flight center has developed a coating of aluminum mirrors they term XeLiF. This coating has high ultraviolet reflection and improved environmental stability over similar LiF coatings. For these reasons, it is a potential candidate for the future Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) flagship space telescope mission. However, the stability of XeLiF at the planned L2 orbit of HWO has not been investigated. This study highlights the potential damage to XeLiF when irradiated by electrons that will be present at L2. This radiation will begin removing LiF after 6 years of exposure as well as start roughening the surface. An RMS roughness over 40 nm will be reached by 30 years. Protective measures or replacement coatings need to be investigated.

In the L2 learning process, prosody is among the most determinant linguistic features for a fully pragmatic competence. Additionally, this ability is often crucial for the disambiguation of certain structures and thus also crucial for perceptive acceptability. Italian prosodic configurations dramatically vary through the diatopic dimension. Nevertheless, certain prosodic structures and patterns can still be perceived as effective and acceptable. With these perspectives, we explored the oral acceptability in L2 of advanced Swedish learners of Italian through perceptive judgments by natives. Despite the lack of acoustic analysis and the limitation in the size of the sample of our study, the results showed a strong indication for a regional variation of the perception by the Italian natives, not only considering the production of learners but also considering the natives themselves. Finally, we discuss some of the didactic implications which may be considered particularly useful for native teachers in L2 contexts.

O NAVSTAR-GPS, com uma grande variedade de conjuntos receptores e sua aplicabilidade prática em diversas áreas, transformou-se no mais difundido dos sistemas de posicionamento. Porém, necessidades cada vez maiores em termos de precisão trouxeram consigo o ônus de um custo elevado com a aquisição de equipamentos de dupla freqüência. Este trabalho consiste no desenvolvimento de um método que possibilite a modelagem das observáveis GPS, através de Redes Neurais Artificiais, bem como a agregação destes dados a um arquivo gerado por um receptor de uma freqüência, conferindo-lhe características específicas de arquivos gerados por receptores de dupla freqüência e código P. Isto possibilita que dados gerados por receptores de uma freqüência, a imensa maioria dos receptores utilizados no Brasil, possam ser processados como vetores de bases longas. Os resultados obtidos indicam que o uso de modelos neurais, treinados por algoritmos de aprendizado supervisionado, são uma alternativa promissora para estimar dados GPS. / The NAVSTAR-GPS, with a great variety of receivers and its practical aplicabillity in several areas, transformed itself in the most known positioning system. But the necessity of improving the results precision brings with it a cost increasing caused by the use of equipments of dual frequency equipments. This work consist on the development of a method that makes possible the GPS data modelling using Neural Networks, as well as the aggregation of these data into a file generated by single frequency receiver, providing to the system specific characteristics of files generated by double frequency an P code receiver. This makes possible that data generated by receivers of single frequency, the majority of receivers in Brazil, can be processed as vectors of long bases. The results obtained indicate that the use of Neural Network models, with algorithms of supervised learning are a promissing alternative to estimate GPS data.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:26:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 eren.pdf: 4365249 bytes, checksum: 24e897a6b68742ade7b316beaa4732f5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-11-01 / This study aims at investigating the role of explicit instruction and working memory on the L2 reading skills of undergraduate students of the Systems Analysis and Development Course of a technology college in Pelotas. For that purpose, a study was conducted with 44 informants divided into experimental group and control group. Four research instruments were used to collect data during the ESP classes: a pretest, a posttest, a retention test, and a working memory test. First, the pretest was applied in order to observe the students knowledge about the conjunctions while reading texts in English. Then, explicit instruction was given on that grammar topic only for the experimental group. The posttest, which was taken by both groups, aimed at observing the performance of the participants of the experimental group after instruction and comparing this performance to that of the control group. The third test, applied three months after instruction, aimed at observing the retention of the target forms. Finally, the working memory test was administered to check if there would be correlation between L2 reading competence and working memory, that is, if the participants with higher working memory scores (higher spans) would also be the ones who would correctly answer the greater number of questions in the reading test. The posttest results reveal that explicit instruction has an important role in the acquisition of the target conjunctions; however, no correlation was found in this particular group of participants between the results of the reading test and the working memory test / O presente estudo foi realizado com o objetivo de investigar o papel da instrução explícita e da memória de trabalho na leitura em L2 de alunos do curso de Análise e Desenvolvimento de Sistemas de uma faculdade de tecnologia de Pelotas. Para tanto, um estudo foi desenvolvido com 44 informantes divididos em Grupo Experimental e Grupo Controle. Para a coleta de dados foram utilizados quatro instrumentos de pesquisa durante as aulas de inglês instrumental: pré-teste, pós-teste, teste de retenção e teste de memória de trabalho. Primeiramente, o pré-teste foi realizado com o objetivo de observar o conhecimento dos alunos acerca das conjunções em inglês durante a leitura de textos em L2. Em seguida, houve a instrução explícita sobre o tópico gramatical em questão somente para o grupo experimental. O pós-teste, que foi realizado para ambos os grupos, pretendia observar o desempenho dos informantes do Grupo Experimental após a instrução e comparar esse desempenho com o do Grupo Controle. O terceiro teste, realizado três meses após a instrução, teve o objetivo de observar a retenção das formas-alvo. Finalmente, o teste de memória de trabalho foi aplicado para observar se haveria relação entre a competência de leitura em L2 e a memória de trabalho, ou seja, se os informantes com maior amplitude de memória de trabalho seriam também os que acertariam o maior número de questões no teste de leitura. Os resultados do pós-teste revelam que a instrução explícita desempenha papel importante para a aquisição do conhecimento das conjunções, porém na amostra investigada não foi encontrada correlação entre o desempenho nos testes de leitura e memória de trabalho

Cette recherche porte sur l’enseignement de la littérature dans un cursus universitaire de français langue étrangère. Elle questionne la notion de culture littéraire à travers les « canons littéraires », les littératures « mineures » selon la terminologie de G. Deleuze, et leur contextualisation d’une part, et, d’autre part, à travers la mise en place de pratiques enseignantes visant sa transmission / construction. Cette recherche étant ancrée dans les sciences humaines par ses champs d’étude – la littérature et la didactique – et étant, par conséquent, relativement subjective, nous avons choisi d’étudier un cas particulier, celui dans lequel nos questions sont apparues, afin de mettre en évidence ses spécificités mais aussi des traits généralisables ou, du moins, ouvrant des pistes de réflexions transposables dans d’autres contextes. Pour effectuer cette étude, nous avons privilégié une approche inductive et compréhensive et nous avons opté pour une méthode mixte ou une triangulation permettant le croisement de différentes données dans le but d’avoir une vision globale de la situation en termes de pratiques, de potentiels et de limites. Les résultats obtenus dans ce contexte ouvrent un champ de possibles pour penser une didactique du FLE adaptée à un enseignement littéraire en milieu universitaire. / This research focuses on teaching literature at a university-level French language department. It questions the concept of literary culture through the concepts of “literary canon”, “minor” literature, following G. Deleuze’s terminology, and their contextualization on the one hand, and on the other, through the implementation of teaching practices aiming at transmitting / building it. This research, rooted in human sciences because of its fields of study – literature and didactics – and as a consequence, being relatively subjective, is focused on a specific case, the one where our questions first emerged from: the French department at Birzeit University in Palestine. This approach allows us to enhance the specificities of this context while drawing at the same time some features that could be generalized, or at least that could open some opportunities for transferable reflections on other contexts. In conducting this study an inductive and comprehensive approach has been favored. A mixed-method approach or triangulation was used, allowing us to cross-compare data in order to get a more global view of the situation in terms of practice, potential and limits. The results obtained in this context then open new horizons to think adapted French as a foreign language didactics to literary teaching/learning in an academic context.

O NAVSTAR-GPS, com uma grande variedade de conjuntos receptores e sua aplicabilidade prática em diversas áreas, transformou-se no mais difundido dos sistemas de posicionamento. Porém, necessidades cada vez maiores em termos de precisão trouxeram consigo o ônus de um custo elevado com a aquisição de equipamentos de dupla freqüência. Este trabalho consiste no desenvolvimento de um método que possibilite a modelagem das observáveis GPS, através de Redes Neurais Artificiais, bem como a agregação destes dados a um arquivo gerado por um receptor de uma freqüência, conferindo-lhe características específicas de arquivos gerados por receptores de dupla freqüência e código P. Isto possibilita que dados gerados por receptores de uma freqüência, a imensa maioria dos receptores utilizados no Brasil, possam ser processados como vetores de bases longas. Os resultados obtidos indicam que o uso de modelos neurais, treinados por algoritmos de aprendizado supervisionado, são uma alternativa promissora para estimar dados GPS. / The NAVSTAR-GPS, with a great variety of receivers and its practical aplicabillity in several areas, transformed itself in the most known positioning system. But the necessity of improving the results precision brings with it a cost increasing caused by the use of equipments of dual frequency equipments. This work consist on the development of a method that makes possible the GPS data modelling using Neural Networks, as well as the aggregation of these data into a file generated by single frequency receiver, providing to the system specific characteristics of files generated by double frequency an P code receiver. This makes possible that data generated by receivers of single frequency, the majority of receivers in Brazil, can be processed as vectors of long bases. The results obtained indicate that the use of Neural Network models, with algorithms of supervised learning are a promissing alternative to estimate GPS data.

This dissertation contributes to an ongoing debate on the types of linguistic features which can be acquired in a second language by looking at the multiple learning challenges related to the ergative case system (the appearance of –ne with the subject) in Hindi-Urdu by classroom learners. Some hypotheses in second language research hold that interpretable features (features which contribute semantic information) can be acquired in a second language, whereas uninterpretable features (features which express grammatical information) cannot be easily acquired, if ever. Additionally, hypotheses in second language processing hold that the second language learners are able to process semantic information but not grammatical information. This dissertation investigates at the acquisition process of second language learners of Hindi-Urdu acquiring the uninterpretable ergative case. In Hindi-Urdu, the subject of a sentence appears with the ergative case marker –ne, when the verb is transitive and in the perfective aspect. In my dissertation, I test the validity of the aforementioned hypotheses and investigate the acquisition and acquisitional process of ergative case in L2 Hindi-Urdu by L1 English speakers by analyzing data collected by using an acceptability/grammaticality judgement task, a self-paced reading task and a production task from Hindi-Urdu learners and native speakers.

Dans l’apprentissage du français écrit, la norme orthographique représente un lieu de difficulté majeure. Confronté à des complexités multiples, tout scripteur aura un long trajet à parcourir avant d’arriver à la maîtrise complète des traitements orthographiques, et ceci est sans doute d’autant plus vrai lorsqu’il s’agit de s’approprier le système orthographique du français dans une langue étrangère. Cette étude vise donc à analyser la réalisation orthographique, chez les apprenants chinois du français L2. Pour ce faire, nous examinons les données issues d’une tâche écrite semi-spontanée, en nous attachant plus particulièrement au profil développemental des apprenants chinois, et leur tendances interlangagières face aux problèmes de l’orthographe lexicale, de l’accord en nombre et genre et de la morphologie verbale. En outre, une analyse des erreurs commises par les apprenants, ainsi que les explications possibles pour interpréter ces erreurs sont également présentées, en faisant référence aux caractéristiques spécifiques de l’apprentissage de la langue étrangère. / In the area of written French, the orthographic learning represents a major difficulty. Faced with multiple complexities, any writer will have a long way to go before arriving at the complete control of spelling, and this is probably more true when it comes to appropriating this French system in a foreign language which is typologically distinct from the French language. This study aims to analyze the orthographic realization in French L2, for Chinese learners. To do this, we examine data from a semi-spontaneous writing task, focusing in particular on the developmental profile of learners, and their interlanguage tendencies in relation to the problems of lexical orthography, number/gender agreement, and verbal morphology. In addition, an errors analysis as well as possible explanations for interpreting these errors are also presented, with reference to the specific characteristics of L2 learning.