Apesar de o Brasil ser o país com a maior comunidade japonesa fora do Japão, ainda há poucos estudos sobre a aquisição e aprendizagem do português por falantes japoneses. Partindo da descrição do sistema silábico da língua portuguesa (CÂMARA JR., 1970; FERREIRA NETTO, 2001; CRISTÓFARO SILVA, 2009; CAGLIARI, 2007; CAVALIERE, 2005) e da língua japonesa (SHIBATANI, 1987; ITÔ, 1986; McCAWLEY, 1968; HINDS, 1986), pretende-se observar por meio da Análise de Erros (CORDER, 1967) quais as estratégias utilizadas por falantes japoneses em processo de aprendizagem da língua portuguesa para pronunciar duas estruturas silábicas que não existem em sua língua materna: sílabas CVC terminadas em /r/ ou /s/, e sílabas com mais de uma consoante pré-vocálica do tipo CCV, com /r/ ou /l/ ocupando a segunda posição de ataque. A partir dessa observação, busca-se determinar quais dessas estruturas representam maior dificuldade para o aprendiz japonês. Para a composição do corpus, foram criados dezenove nomes fictícios com as estruturas silábicas em questão e sete informantes foram gravados. Ainda que não tenha sido uma pesquisa quantitativa, por meio da comparação dos resultados foi possível verificar a maior facilidade de produzir sílabas CVC em relação às CCV e, para a maioria, o número de acertos foi maior com a consoante /s/ em posição de coda e /r/ na segunda posição de ataque complexo. Quanto à estratégia utilizada, o uso de inserção vocálica foi maior que o de apagamento, exceto quando /r/ ocupa a posição de coda. A pesquisa mostrou que a dificuldade maior ou menor do aprendiz pode ser entendida a partir de processos fonológicos que acontecem na L1, no caso a língua japonesa. / Although Brazil is the country with the largest Japanese community outside Japan, there are few studies about Portuguese acquisition and learning by Japanese speakers. Based on the description of the syllabic system of the Portuguese language (CÂMARA JR., 1970; FERREIRA NETTO, 2001; CRISTÓFARO SILVA, 2009; CAGLIARI, 2007; CAVALIERE, 2005) and of the Japanese language (SHIBATANI, 1987; ITÔ, 1986; McCAWLEY, 1968; HINDS, 1986), we intend to observe through Error Analysis (CORDER, 1967) the strategies used by Japanese learners of Portuguese to pronounce two syllable structures that do not exist in their native language: CVC syllables closed by /r/ or /s/ and CCV syllables with /r/ or /l/ in the second onset position. From this observation, we seek to determine which of these structures represents more difficulty for Japanese learners. To compose the corpus, nineteen fictitious names with the syllabic structure in question were created and seven informants were recorded. Although it has not been a quantitative research, by comparing the results we could verify that it was easier to produce CVC syllables than CCV ones. In addition, for most of the informants, the number of correct production was higher with the consonant /s/ in coda position and /r/ in the second onset position. For the strategy used, the use of vowel insertion was higher than deletion, except when /r/ occupies the coda position. Research has shown that the greater or lesser difficulty of the learner can be understood from phonological processes that occur in L1, in this case the Japanese language.

Second language learners of English often experience difficulties in English lexical stress perception. This has traditionally been attributed to transfer of prosodic unit or settings from their first language (L1). Similarly, the problem of Chinese learners with English stress perception was assumed to arise from tonal transfer. However, little research has been devoted to the investigation of the phonetic details of second language (L2) stress perception. The present research focuses on the perception of English lexical stress by Chinese learners of English. The purpose of this study is to reveal the use of acoustic cues in stress perception by Chinese learners of English. In the experiment, F0, duration and intensity were manipulated, each with five steps, on three disyllabic nonsense words to result in a total of 375 nonsense tokens. A group of native speakers of English (NE) and a group of Chinese learners of English (CE) participated in the study and judged whether the stress was on the first or second syllable in the test stimuli. The responses of Chinese learners of English in stress judgment were compared against the baseline of native English speakers. The statistical tests of reliance measures and logistic regression models were used in data analysis. Results indicated that, similar to NE participants, performance by CE participants showed systematic variation as a result of the manipulation of the three acoustic cues. However, CEs were different from NEs in their reliance on the three cues. CE had significantly lower duration and intensity reliance scores but significantly higher F0 than NE. In logistic regression analysis, compared to the NE group, F0 contributed most to the CE models, while the contribution of duration and intensity was minimal. It is concluded from this study that while all three cues have significant effects on stress perception for native English speakers, only F0 has a decisive effect on stress judgments by Chinese learners of English. This study reveals that, rather than transfer of tone at the phonological level, there is transfer of reliance on F0 in the acquisition of L2 English stress. It is suggested that the investigation of phonetic details of learners’ problems with L2 stress acquisition is necessary for L2 speech learning theories and also for L2 stress teaching.

Children today encounter the English language on a wide scale, even outside the school walls. As they are exposed to various forms of English language input, they inevitably pick up a certain level of proficiency, which they can later use on their own. This study aims to more precisely research through which mediums English learners in primary school worldwide tend to encounter English the most, as well as how engaging in English activities outside the classroom might affect their English proficiency. By studying prior research on the subject through content analysis, it was found that, while there are some regional differences in terms of prevalence, children mainly encounter English through television, music, and computer games. It was also found that many children who had never before received any English training still possessed a level of English proficiency. These findings shed light on the importance of input for language acquisition as well as how children’s extramural interests can be of importance in the classroom setting.

[ES] La instrucción de género denominada narrativa personal de no ficción o memorias, junto con el método de enseñanza Harkness en la expresión escrita del español como lengua extranjera, demostrará en el contexto particular de una universidad americana en España y en Estados Unidos un desarrollo superior de esta habilidad y desempeño. A la autora de esta tesis le gustaría contribuir a una tan esperada presencia de la escritura del español como L2 en la literatura de investigación. Este estudio trata de desarrollar en las clases de ELE para estudiantes americanos nuevos métodos que logren despertar el deseo, ya que no existe en este contexto la necesidad, de aprender español. A partir de la experiencia en la enseñanza del español a estudiantes universitarios y de secundaria estadounidenses, por un lado, en Estados Unidos como requisito obligatorio por parte de la universidad para el crédito en lenguas extranjeras y, por otro lado, en programas académicos estadounidenses de inmersión en España (en ambos casos siguiendo los libros y el método impuesto por las universidades) es común que estudiantes y profesores estén insatisfechos. La intención es demostrar que con la pedagogía Harkness y la enseñanza de la expresión escrita a través del género ensayo personal, es posible crear un currículo académico donde se obtienen claras mejoras en el aprendizaje final. Además, crea un ambiente donde los estudiantes están motivados y felices de aprender un segundo idioma. Se podría llevar a cabo la construcción de género y de la pedagogía basada en el género en un primer plano socio-contextual, de manera que permitan a los alumnos de ELE ver el contenido en términos de lenguaje desde el principio, en lugar de tener que integrarlos más tarde. Los programas de estudios universitarios de ELE tienen a su disposición la configuración de su destino, la calidad de su programa y el de los aprendizajes de sus alumnos. El objetivo se habrá logrado si el estudio ha convencido a los lectores de que los programas universitarios de ELE pueden revitalizarse aplicando una orientación humanística, al mismo tiempo, basada en el lenguaje. / [CA] L'orientació cap al gènere denominat non-fiction de la narrativa personal o Memoirs juntament amb el mètode Harkness d'ensenyament en l'expressió escrita d'ELE, en el context particular d'una Universitat Americana a Espanya i als Estats Units, demostrarà un desenvolupament més elevat de aquesta habilitat i del seu rendiment. L'autora d'aquesta tesi desitjaria contribuir a una llargament esperada presència de l'escriptura de l'espanyol com a L2 en la literatura d'investigació. Aquest estudi tracta de desenvolupar en les classes d'ELE per a estudiants americans nous mètodes que aconsegueixin despertar el desig, ja que no existeix en aquest context la necessitat, d'aprendre espanyol. Basat en l'experiència en ensenyar a estudiants universitaris americans espanyol, d'una banda, als Estats Units com a requeriment obligatori per part de la universitat de crèdit en llengües estrangeres i, de l'altra, en programes acadèmics americans d'immersió a Espanya (en els dos casos seguint els llibres i el mètode que imposen les universitats) és comú el desistiment i descontentament per part dels estudiants i professors. La intenció és demostrar que amb el mètode d'ensenyament Harkness juntament amb l'ensenyament de l'expressió escrita a través del gènere de l'assaig personal és possible crear un contingut acadèmic on no només s'obtenen clares millores de l'aprenentatge final, sinó que s'arriba a crear un ambient on els estudiants estan motivats i contents d'aprendre una segona llengua. Es podria dur a terme la construcció de gènere i de la pedagogia basada en el gènere en un primer pla soci-contextual, de manera que permetin als alumnes d'ELE veure el contingut en termes de llenguatge des del principi, en lloc d'haver de integrar-los posteriorment. S'haurà obtingut l'objectiu si l'estudi obté lectors convençuts que es poden revitalitzar programes universitaris d'ELA mitjançant l'aplicació d'una orientació humanista, a el mateix temps, basada en el llenguatge. / [EN] The gender instruction called the non-fiction personal narrative or memoirs, together with the Harkness method of teaching in the written expression of Spanish as a Foreign Language, will demonstrate in the particular context of an American University in Spain and in the US a higher development of this ability and performance. The author of this thesis would like to contribute to a long-awaited Spanish writing presence as L2 in the research literature. This study tries to develop in SFL classes for American universities and students' new methods that manage to awaken the desire since there is no need in this context to learn Spanish. Based on the experience in teaching Spanish to American university and high school students, on the one hand, in the United States as a mandatory requirement by the university for credit in foreign languages and, on the other hand, in American academic programs of immersion in Spain (in both cases following the books and the method imposed by the universities) it is common for students and teachers to be dissatisfied. The intention is to demonstrate that with the Harkness pedagogy and the teaching of written expression through the personal essay genre, it is possible to create an academic curriculum where clear improvements are obtained in the final learning. Besides, it creates an environment where students are motivated and happy to learn a second language. The construction of gender and gender-based instruction could be carried out in a socio-contextual foreground to allow SFL students to see the content in terms of language from the beginning, rather than having to integrate them later. SFL's university study programs have at their disposal shaping their destiny, the quality of their program, and that of their students' learning. The objective will have been achieved if the study has convinced readers that SFL university programs can be revitalized by applying a humanistic, at the same time, language-based orientation. / García Montes, P. (2021). Application of Genre and the Harkness Pedagogy for the Advanced Development of Writing Skills in Spanish in Foreign Language Courses [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/171795 / TESIS

This is a study that employs error analysis to investigate written production in English, by Swedish upper secondary learners of English, in order to determine which linguistic errors most commonly occur amongst this group, and to compare the results between first-year students and third-year students for a possible indication of which error types continue to occur throughout upper secondary school. The error categories included in this study are grammatical errors and errors as a result of transfer. The variable of gender will also be taken into account, due to the statistics and previous research that show female students tend to achieve higher results in academics. The purpose of the study is to gain a better understanding of how Swedish upper secondary learners acquire English, and to uncover which areas are most challenging for them, in the hopes of highlighting areas within ELT that may need revision. The participants of the study are students attending Swedish upper secondary schools, year 1 and 3. The analyzed data was collected from the Uppsala Learner English Corpus (ULEC), which consists of texts produced by Swedish learners of English attending middle school and upper secondary school.     The results show that certain error categories and types are consistently challenging for both first-year students and third-year students, which provides an indication of which areas in ELT might be lacking. Within the grammatical error category, all groups demonstrated a significant lack of knowledge pertaining to subject-verb agreement, as well as prepositions, which are both to a certain degree attributed to the first language; meaning, they may be the result of transfer. The male students were shown to outperform the female students; however, the female third-year students produced fewer errors than their male counterparts, which suggests a faster progression. The male third-year students were shown to have the same error rate as the male first-year students, which suggests a slower progression. While the third-year students produced fewer errors overall, the error types they struggled the most with are the same error types most commonly occurring in the first-year group, suggesting pedagogical remediation is needed.

This study investigates spelling errors among Swedish students of English. The purpose of this research is to develop a better understanding of the causes of spelling errors and to investigate whether there are any differences between program orientation and gender. The participants are English A students from Swedish high schools in year 1. The data analysed in this study consists of essays written by the participants which have been gathered into the Uppsala Learner English Corpus (ULEC). The results showed that the academic program has a lower error rate when compared to the vocational program and that female students display a lower error frequency than male students. These results reflect the same pattern found by previous studies on achievement between the programs and across gender. However, when comparing all variables, both gender and program, the results demonstrate that academic male students had the lowest error rate of all groups, which could partially be explained by the fact that the academic male students have a higher level of engagement with video- and online games when compared to the other groups. The language processes that the participants found the most challenging were letter omission, letter insertion and letter substitution. These results follow the same pattern highlighted in previous studies on spelling among both native speakers and learners. Finally, the exchange between the vowels <a>, <e> and <i> was found to be a frequent error among the students. Experiencing difficulties with the correct usage of vowels can be explained as a transfer error.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T11:07:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tonia Leigh Wind.pdf: 1184142 bytes, checksum: 44a648012c70583d5cd712e731f0b082 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-20 / O objetivo principal desta pesquisa é analisar o segmento denominado literatura infantil sob a perspectiva das tradições culturais decorrentes da prática de leitura no Brasil e nos EUA; da influência desta espécie literária no processo de formação do indivíduo, e dos percalços linguísticos enfrentados na tradução de livros estrangeiros para o mercado nacional. Para tanto, far-se-á uma apresentação do contexto histórico-cultural da espécie literária, de suas raízes nos contos orais indo-europeus até chegar ao que se considera a nascença da literatura infantil brasileira no Século XX. Como complemento ao estudo cultural, avaliar-se-á obras canônicas e textos doutrinários usando como suporte teórico da narrativa e da literatura em geral: Gaston Bachelard, Peter Hunt, Ana Maria Machado, Terry Eagleton, Nelly Novaes Coelho, Regina Zilberman, Marisa Lajolo, entre outros. Um enfoque especial será dado ao conceito norte-americano e brasileiro de cultura de leitura e mediadores de leitura para comparar o processo de formação do indivíduo em ambos os países. Como parte desta abordagem, será mostrada uma análise dos conceitos de multiculturalismo e pluriculturalismo as quais serão apresentadas para apontar sua importância e influência no leitor dentro da sociedade. O último capítulo da pesquisa dar-se-á sobre o tema tradução e suas implicações linguístico-culturais enfrentados pelo tradutor literário, assim como a migração do hábito de leitura dentro das salas de aulas de L2 para fomentar a aquisição de uma segunda língua. Analisar-se-á aspectos do texto original que se perdem numa adaptação ou tradução dando uma ênfase especial aos conceitos de domesticação e estrangeirização para melhor atender às necessidades do leitor final usando como suporte as teorias tradutórias de George Steiner, Lawrence Venuti, Eugene Nida, Jeremy Munday, John Milton, Mona Baker, Zohar Shavit, Susan Bassnett, Riitta Oittinen, entre outros. Como base de análise literária, o corpus desta pesquisa será composto de alguns exemplos de cânones, focando especificamente dois livros norte-americanos e suas traduções brasileiras: Where the Wild Things Are (Onde Vivem os Monstros) de Maurice Sendak e Mr. Peabody´s Apples (As Maçãs do Sr. Peabody) da Madonna.

In a suggestion to build upon students’ historical knowledge through reading The Remains of the Day, this essay delves into cross-curricular teaching, dual-coded theory aspects and revision of suggested plans to improve learner’s understanding of historical novels, characters, events, and descriptions to grasp and reflect upon such historical knowledge. Several methods for enhancing students’ knowledge and to improve vocabulary knowledge are provided. The essay is theoretically based and presents different aspects of how students’ knowledge of English and history as separate subjects in school, could be combined to address the learning abilities of all students. Reading comprehension is mainly based upon students’ prior knowledge. Therefore, this essay delves into various parts of learners’ abilities to reflect upon the written word and its significance to reality. Furthermore, suggestions to how teachers can collaborate to achieve an improved understanding of the novel and its time period through history and vocabulary is presented.

<p>A great deal of the research on cross-linguistic phonetic influence demonstrates that a speaker’s knowledge of their first language (L1) significantly affects their ability to perceive and produce sounds in any other language. While current studies show that cross-linguistic transfer occurs at the L3 level, some research suggests that properties of both L1 and L2 are present in the production of L3 (Ionin, Montrul & Santos, 2011). Many studies have addressed perception, production and factors that influence foreign speech in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) (Watkins, Rauber & Baptista, 2009). As the number of multilingual individuals rises, so does the need for studies that investigate not only SLA but also that of additional languages (i.e., Third Language Acquisition). This dissertation examines how cross-linguistic influence (CLI) occurs among English, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese (BP), examining instances of vowel reduction, an aspect of phonological production. English and BP are assumed as vowel reducing languages, whereas Spanish displays negligible vowel reduction in comparison. The vowel productions in L3 BP of two multilingual groups, L1English-L2Spanish-L3BP (ESP) and L1 Spanish-L2 English-BP (SEP) were investigated in two tasks: a paragraph reading task (PRT) and a carrier phrase task (CPT). The study sought to determine whether i) a native speaker of a vowel reducing L1 and a non-vowel reducing L2 displays more or less vowel reduction in a vowel reducing L3 than a native speaker of a non-vowel reducing L1 and vowel reducing L2 and ii) how length of exposure to an L3 affects phonological production. Three fixed effects were considered: duration ratio, intensity ratio and height (F1). The goal was to ascertain whether the Typological Primacy Model (TPM) (Rothman 2011, 2015) or the L2 Status Factor Model (Bardel & Falk 2007, 2012; Hammarberg, 2001) would be a better predictor for how vowel reduction would occur in the L3. Results for duration ratio and vowel height showed no significant difference between groups ESP and SEP. Results for intensity ratio suggest L2 Status as a better predictor, as group SEP displayed more phonological transfer than the ESP group. A hybrid approach to L3 acquisition models is proposed. </p>

Research has shown that literacy acquisition and the ultimate realisation of literacy, comprehension of the written text requires more than the ability to decode individual words. This study brings together a synthesis of current research on early language acquisition, language structure, vocabulary development and its intrinsic underpinning of comprehension in monolinguals thereby providing a theoretical framework for a comparative study of limited English proficient learners (LEP’s)/English language learners (ELLs) acquiring first time literacy with the attendant vocabulary deficits and age appropriate decoding skills. A quantitative and qualitative study examines the statistical differences between reading, vocabulary, rapid automatic naming (RAN/decoding) and comprehension when a learner born of foreign parents acquires first time literacy in a language other than the language spoken at home. The study isolates and specifies an at risk educational minority through the identification of a hidden comprehension deficit (HCD). In summarising the main findings from the literature review and the empirical investigation, an “at risk educational minority” was identified and isolated through the identification of the HCD. The envisioned outcome was achieved and the hypothesis accepted. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Inclusive Education)