The value of teaching foreign literature in EFL classes in China and the methods of teaching foreign literature in EFL classes in China are two questions that this paper attempts to discuss. The paper covers three major areas: 1) A brief introduction to the teaching of literature in EFL classes in China before and now. 2) Theoretical interpretations of the important role of teaching foreign literature in EFL classes in China 3) Practical application of literature teaching in EFL classes in China. In the first area, the author gives some information about literature teaching before 1950 and now and also mentions the advantages of teaching literature in China now. The second area shows what literature is and why Chinese EFL students should study foreign literature. The author intends to show in this area that the main purpose of teaching foreign literature in EFL classes in China should not be to increase students' ability to appreciate novels, but to: 1) get information and knowledge of culture, history in the target language countries 2) increase students' ability to appreciate the thought pattern of the people in the target language countries 3) improve students' four language skills. Finally, some suggestions on what to teach, how to teach and how to evaluate the teaching result are provided. In order to apply the theories that this paper has mentioned to practical teaching, the author presents two teaching plans at the end.

This study investigated how emotion-regulation would moderate the relationship between shyness and joint engagement and how joint engagement would mediate the relationship between shyness and language skills. Fifty-three mother-child dyads were observed in the laboratory according to the Communication Play Protocol (Adamson & Bakeman, 1999) when the toddlers were 24 and 30 months of age. Mothers completed the Temperament Behavior Assessment Questionnaire-Revised (Rothbart & Goldsmith, unpublished). Toddlers also completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (PPVT-III; Dunn & Dunn, 1997) and Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT; Williams, 1997). The relationship between shyness and the percentage of time spent in non-symbol-infused coordinated joint engagement was moderated by a toddler’s ability to self-soothe. Shyer toddlers had significantly lower receptive language scores than less shy toddlers, and this relationship was partially mediated by the percentage of time toddlers spent in symbol-infused supported and coordinated joint engagement states. INDEX WORDS: Temperament, Shyness, Emotion-regulation, Language Skills, Joint Engagement

This thesis consists of three chapters investigating the impact of immigrant language skills on Canadian wages. The first chapter, “Linguistic diversity among Canadian immigrants: 1981-2006”, describes the changes in linguistic diversity among Canadian immigrants, as measured by a preferred linguistic distance measure, the Levenshtein Distance (LD) Index, and documents socio-demographic characteristics of recent immigrants as well as their labour market performance based on their language capital at the time of entry. The LD is an approximation of immigrants’ language skills in the Canadian official languages and represents the “distance” of an immigrant’s reported language to the Canadian official languages. Using the 20% micro-data files of the Canadian Censuses between 1981 and 2006, I assign each immigrant an index number based on two language measures: mother tongue and home language. French and English are defined as the Canadian official languages in Quebec and outside of Quebec, respectively. The main findings suggest that although immigrants’ mother tongues became more “distant” to the Canadian official languages in both regions over time, the language skill of an average immigrant based on home language remained almost the same in Quebec, in particular, between 1981 and 1996. In terms of immigrants’ socio-demographic characteristics and their labour market performance, general patterns were similar across the two regions, although there were significant differences by language groups. In particular, the change in immigrants’ wages by language groups is suggestive of the role of language skills in determining wages. The second chapter, “Immigrant versus native men? Substitutability and the role of linguistic diversity in Canada”, estimates the degree of substitutability between immigrant and native men by incorporating immigrants’ language skills into the analysis and calculates the potential wage effects of immigration on Canadian wages. Using the 20% micro-data files of the Canadian Censuses between 1981 and 2006 and imposing a nested-CES production function on the Canadian economy, I estimate immigrant-native substitutability based on immigrants’ language skills in addition to education levels and years of labour market experience. I use the LD Index to represent immigrants’ language skills by the distance of the mother tongue and home language of an immigrant to English outside of Quebec and to French in Quebec. I define three language groups for immigrants as the high language-skilled, the medium language-skilled, and the low language-skilled. The key findings are as follows. First, home language-based estimates suggest imperfect substitutability in Canada outside of Quebec in some cases. Second, by language skill groups, the low language-skilled immigrants are more likely to be imperfect substitutes for the Canadian-born. Third, the findings for Quebec are substantially different from those for Canada outside of Quebec. My simulations suggest that the long-run effect of immigration on immigrants’ wages was negative between 1981 and 2006 while the long-run effect of immigration on the wages of the Canadian-born was small but positive over the same period. The third chapter, “Gender, linguistic diversity, and labour market substitutability”, uses the same methodology and data sources as in the second chapter to incorporate female workers into the analysis of immigrant-native substitutability. This study estimates the elasticity of substitution between immigrant language groups and natives for female workers and the pooled sample of male and female workers. The findings suggest that the degree of substitutability between female immigrants and female natives is similar to the degree of substitutability between male immigrants and male natives. The main results do not change for the pooled sample. Due to potential differences between language accumulation processes between female and male immigrants, the third chapter also estimates female-male immigrants substitutability based on language skills, education levels, and years of labour market experience. The findings suggest that female and male immigrants are imperfect substitutes outside of Quebec regardless of language measures.

M.A. (Applied Linguistics)) / The aim of this study was to investigate the validity and reliability of two techniques of assessing writing proficiency. Both measuring techniques, Le. objective (multiple-choice question) and subjective (essay-type question) have their advantages as well as limitations and little agreement regarding their validity and reliability has been reached to date. Today great pressure is put on educational bodies to ensure that tests are fair to all those who attempt them and the cry for common standards is steadily increasing. The importance, therefore, of investigating the suitability of a multiple-choice test as a valid and reliable technique of assessing writing proficiency, is self-evident. Literature relevant to the following fields was reviewed: * Applied linguistics in relation to its application to pedagogy, especially to the teaching and testing of English as a second language * Perspectives concerning the methodology of teaching English as a second language, for example the traditional and functional/notional methods as well as the shift in emphasis from grammar oriented syllabuses to the new communicative approach * The writing process and the language skills and abilities involved * The validity and reliability of the essay-type test as opposed to multiple-choice testing as a measure of writing proficiency * The measurement of writing proficiency * Various scoring techniques...

Reading aloud. A phenomenographic study of educators' work with and perceptions of reading aloud in preschools. The purpose of this phenomenographic study is to investigate how preschools teachers work with reading aloud in preschools, as well as to identify educators' different perceptions of this subject. Our intent is also to get an expanded picture of how reading aloud in preschools can contribute to children's language development. The theoretical point of view of this study is based on sociocultural theory. To gather our empirical data, we have conducted qualitative interviews with ten preschool teachers in four different preschools in Sweden. From our study it has become apparent to us that there is variation in the educators'perceptions of reading aloud. Based on the result of this study the approaches and perceptions differ depending on the educators' knowledge and purpose. Although there is a similarity when it comes to their awareness of the importance of reading aloud to children, they all express that reading aloud at early age contributes positively to children's language skills. The result of this study brings attention to the responsibility that every preschool teacher needs to take in order to create an inspiring and effective reading activity. In one of the examined schools, not all of the teachers are allowed to read to the children, due to problems with pronunciation of the Swedish language; the reading time is only done by the teachers who have Swedish as a mother tongue. In addition, the results show a lack of good collaboration between home and the preschools.There are many children who do not show interest in books, and this may be because they have never had reading experiences at home. Thus, according to the respondents, the environment at home affects the childrens’ ability to learn from reading aloud in preschool.

This thesis focuses on the relationship between theory of mind and language skills in Czech preschoolers. The theoretical part summarizes current knowledge about theory of mind, its relationship to language skills, and some areas of development of preschool children. The empirical part describes the research of the relationship between theory of mind and language skills of Czech preschoolers. Fifty-five children in total participated in this research, twenty children in a younger group (m=42 months), and thirty-five children in an older group (m=54 months). Theory of mind has been assessed by two false-belief tasks: Sally-Ann Task, and Smarties task. Language skills were tested by Grammar reasoning test, and Understanding of grammar test from test battery of Seidlová-Málková and Smolík (2014). The older group has significantly better results in false-belief tasks then the younger group. Despite anticipated results, there was not statistically significant difference between the younger and the older groups' language skills. A moderate positive correlation was found between language skills and false-belief understanding in both groups. KEYWORDS Theory of Mind, False Belief Understanding, Language Skills, Preschoolers, Sally-Ann Task, Smarties Task

This report addresses the lack of progress in the field of Second Language Attrition (L2A). Review of L2A history and literature show this to be cause by lack of appropriate data. Five criteria for appropriate data are suggested and a corpus of L2A data (57,000 words, spoken Spanish) which meets the criteria is presented. The history of the corpus is explained in detail, including subject selection, instruments and methods of collection, and markup -- XML was used to annotate the corpus with nineteen categories of speech errors, adapted from Nation's (2001) "Learning Vocabulary in Another Language." An example analysis of how the corpus can be used for L2A research is provided with step-by-step instructions on writing scripts for data extraction and post-processing in the Perl language. Source code is included in the text. Complete beginners tutorials on the XML and Perl languages are included in the appendices. The report also introduces a website, developed specifically to host the corpus, where researchers may register, download the corpus and share work they have done with the corpus. All files used in the example project, as well as this report, are available for download at the website. Findings from the example analysis support Plateau Phases, the Regression Hypothesis and suggest the Threshold Hypothesis does not apply to marked forms. This shows the corpus to be of great value to the L2A research community.

Enseigner une langue peut être défini comme « rendre l’élève capable de communiquer dans cette langue », oralement et par écrit: exprimer et comprendre des notions, utiliser et comprendre des actes de language. Enseigner une langue peut également être l’occasion de faire acquérir des stratégies d’apprentissage qui seront probablement applicables à d’autres langues et à d’autres objets d’étude : l’observation précise des faits de langue ; la comparaison; la mémorisation (mots, structures, signification, façons diverses d’exprimer une notion). / Mokyti užsienio kalbą- tai padaryti mokinį gabiu bendrauti ta kalba žodžiu ir raštu, t.y. išreikšti ir suprasti sąvokas, naudoti ir suprasti kalbos aktus. Užsienio kalbų mokymas naudoja būdus, kurie taikomi įvairiuose mokymo objektuose: kalbos faktų supratimas, palyginimas, įsisavinimas (žodžių, struktūrų, reikšmių,įvairių būdų išreikšti sąvokas). / Teaching a language can be defined as "making the student able to communicate in that language, orally and in writing: express and understand concepts, use and understand acts of language. Teaching a language can also be an opportunity to acquire learning strategies that are likely to be applicable to other languages and other objects of study: the observation of the facts of language, comparison, memorization (words, structures, meanings, different ways of expressing an idea).

Previous research studies have demonstrated that international graduate students experience various challenges adapting to academic situations within a new university community. This thesis reports on an interview study with six international graduate students who use English as a second language studying Master’s degree at one Canadian university. This study addresses the academic assessment and evaluation experience of international graduate students in the following four aspects: (1) their enjoyable and challenging assessment practices; (2) understanding of assessment expectations; (3) reflections on previous educational experience; and (4) psychological and physical factors in relation to assessment and evaluation. The findings indicate that these students’ experiences of assessment and evaluation procedures are varied and the academic acculturation process towards assessment depends on different yet interrelated factors: English language competence, cultural and educational awareness, and assessment literacy. All six research participants adapted to the host academic assessment practices and procedures fairly well despite the fact that they were not familiar with the expectations and requirements regarding assessment and evaluation at the beginning of their studies. These students learned about the host academic culture regarding assessment and evaluation through their own examination failure, instructors’ feedback, and peers’ observation. The findings also indicate that international graduate students need more coordinated support from university supportive services and easier access to information about assessment and evaluation expectations and requirements. Implications of the findings for effective learning and positive academic experience for L2 international graduate students, faculty and supportive staff, and for future research are discussed. It is suggested to organize workshops and seminars devoted to assessment literacy for international and domestic graduate students, instructors and supporting staff in order to enhance learning experience and outcomes. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-10-09 17:43:27.833

The SRA-10 is a tactile instrument which provides hearing impaired subjects with acoustic transforms that can be easily discriminated on the skin. Whether or not the SRA-10 is an effective means of training speech-language skills in profoundly hearing impaired subjects was the focus of this investigation. Two profoundly hearing impaired subjects were trained on phonetic reception/production tasks and on discrimination of multisyllabic words. Each subject served as his own control, wearing the SRA-10 for 14, 30 minute sessions, and a Bioacoustics 70-B auditory training unit for the same period of time. Results indicated a greater correct performance gain function with the SRA-10 than with the 70-B, suggesting that speech perception/production training using the SRA-10 or similar device would be superior to training using acoustic amplification.