The field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) has evolved since the 1970s, consequently there now exists a group of adults with cerebral palsy (CP), in the UK, who are life-time users of AAC prescribed as an intervention for their complex communication impairments. Ten adults, aged between 20-55 years, participated in conversations about their unique life experiences and aspirations, using AAC, including voice output communication aids (VOCAs). The ability and opportunity to interact and communicate personal accounts has significance for conceptualizing outcomes of intervention. Clinical practice informed this research project. A qualitative research design was employed to explore questions about the extent to which adult aided communicators talk about their lives, aspirations and opinions; the past life experiences participants talk about and finally how they talk about their quality of life. Conversational-styled, semi-structured interviewing using literature-guided questions yielded rich interactional data. A discourse analytical approach to the 34 interviews was taken. Findings identified a number of ordinary interactional features and discourses. Aided communicators used multimodal communication to interact and converse, positioning through their contributions as assertive speakers and engaged recipients. Interactional turns were managed with participants using unaided communication signals as conversational continuers. Participants demonstrated how to manage others who speak on their behalf. Examples of interactional repair were noted when participants pre-empted breakdown. Managing novel utterances was a feature with unexpected responses challenging the listener’s position. Participants constructed VOCA-mediated utterances to share long-term memories, worries, satisfaction with life, and aspirations. Aspirations included community ambitions and creating fulfilling daily lives. Some participants expressed frustration but balanced this against a position of contentment. Some participants also demonstrated personal responsibility and positioned themselves through their talk as contributors to communities. Recommendations for clinical practice are suggested that include the provision of adult clinical services and interaction focused intervention for adult aided communicators with cerebral palsy.

The thesis is concerned with the role of the target language in foreign language teaching. The objective of the thesis is to discuss the influence of teaching English by means of the target language on communicative competence of young learners. The theoretical part elaborates the theoretical principles that concern employment of the target language in teaching. Futhermore, it analyses the factors influencing foreign language learning, discusses the possibility of language acquisition in the classroom and studies the influence of using the target language as the language of communication and instruction. Subsequently, it provides synchronic and diachronic analysis of L2 and L1 use in English language teaching methodology. In conclusion, the theoretical part evaluates the benefits of teaching by means of the target language, anticipates some risks and problems concerned with teaching exclusively by means of the target language and proposes techniques for maximization of the target language use. The semi-quantitative research studies the issue of the role of the target language in the classroom on the basis of monitoring a sample of teachers of Czech primary schools. Primarily, it investigates the amount of comprehensible input that young learners are provided with and means that teachers employ in...

This study investigates the perceptions that second language students have of those who speak the language that these students are trying to acquire and examines how these perceptions relate to students' progress in acquiring the target language. The study is based on the psychological theory of the need to belong, i.e. belongingness as well as on the concept of integrative motivation. This study is a qualitative investigation that uses the Repertory Grid Technique and Personal Construct Theory in order to elicit subject perceptions and their constructs. Membership checking was carried out with nine of the originally interviewed 22 subjects in order to obtain more insight into the subjects' perceptions of themselves, their progress, and, most importantly, their perceptions of the target language speakers. One of the important findings in this study is the establishment of what elements second language students use to construct views of target language speakers. / The subjects of this study used specific culture, generic culture, language, and perceptions to try to understand target language speakers. Furthermore, those subjects who had graduated from the community college program from which the subjects were drawn and who were now working in the everyday world showed strong desire to integrate into English-speaking society. Conversely, these program graduates showed an increased degree of criticism of American English speakers. Their views may be attributed to the close contact and lack of preparation for contact with target language speakers, as the community college program contained little or no instruction on American English culture. / The perceptions of being marginalized expressed by the graduates, perceptions not shared by those students still in the community college program, indicate a need for a change in curriculum which would emphasize the students' social needs outside of and beyond the classroom and cultivate a sense of belonging to target language society. Belongingness and integrative motivation may well the key to a bright new future of second language acquisition. As more research is done on the significance of both concepts, and as they are increasingly incorporated into language learning classrooms, students should acquire target languages with greater ease. / by Robb Kvasnak. / Vita. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2007. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2007 Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The present study investigated the relation of children’s attentional behaviors to context, gender, and their language skills. Participants were 33 children and their parents. The following attentional behaviors were measured based on coding of video recordings of 30-minute free-play interactions at 30 months: time spent in engaged states (attending to an object, person, or event) and frequency of changes from one engagement state to another. Children’s productive vocabulary and language comprehension were measured using standardized tests at 30, 36, and 42 months. Males spent more time in joint engagement and switched engagement states less frequently. Children spent more time engaged during Animal and Picnic toy play than Book reading. Children attended longer to picnic-related objects than animal-related objects or books, and attended longer to animal- related objects than books. Longer sustained attention—measured as lower frequencies of state switches—was related to higher concurrent and future language comprehension scores. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

ABSTRACT This essay aims to explain the Swedish pupils’ attitude towards grammar and to give a more specific picture of its teaching in modern languages. The underlying factor for this subject is the author’s own experiences with the pupils’ reactions to the word ”grammar”, which is a term often connected to something negative among Swedish students. This thesis presents the pupils’ thoughts regarding grammar and its pedagogy. Since the author participitates in the teachers education programme, the absence of the word ”grammar” in the syllabus for modern languages will also be discussed and questioned. The basis for this thesis is a survey made in an upper secondary school in the south of Sweden in autumn 2014. Several groups studying a foreign language at different levels participated: three groups studying French and two groups studying Spanish. The results reveal that the majority of the pupils find grammar very difficult and boring, although these students also think that the grammar is an important foundation of the language since its study is regarded as an essential part of their language studies. However, the survey also shows that a small group of students find grammar studies interesting. The results and conclusions given in this essay may be of some interest for other teachers and education researchers.

The aim of this study is to find out the pupils’ thoughts and experiences about speakingEnglish for second language acquisition in upper secondary school. We want to establish thatoral communication is an important factor towards fulfilling the criteria to strive for indeveloping the pupils’ knowledge and skills in language learning according to the Curriculumfor Compulsory School System (Skolverket, 2006) and the Syllabus for the English Subject(Skolverket, 2001).The background presents theoretical approaches in second language acquisition, such asVygostskij’s, Piaget’s and Krashen’s theories of language acquisition. Communicativecompetence, affective factors, strategies and speech-codes used in the learning process havealso been briefly described in this study.The methods used for collecting data were observations and interviews, with a qualitativesurvey and hermeneutic approach in focus. The research took place in three different schoolsin a municipality in southwest of Sweden. For the observations, there were 71 pupilsparticipating in this study and 37 pupils wanted to collaborate for the interviews. No teacheror school workers were involved or participated in the observations or interviews. We wantedto keep the pupils’ point of view about how they use verbal language skills in English to gainknowledge about the target language. / Uppsatsnivå: C

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Chan Chun Chiu. / Thesis (M.Div.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-65). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Title Page --- p.i / English Abstracts --- p.ii / Chinese Abstracts --- p.iv / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Statement of Thesis and its Motivation --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Theological Competence and Critical Theory --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3 --- Critical Theology as Revisionary Method of Correlation --- p.12 / Chapter 2. --- The Critical Political Theology of Peukert --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1 --- A Theory of Science: Communicability and Intersubjectivity --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2 --- A Theory of Action --- p.33 / Chapter 2.3 --- A Hermeneutical Criterion and Ethical Response: Anamnestic Solidarity --- p.40 / Chapter 2.4. --- Peukert´ةs View on the Gospels and its Relation to His Critical Political Theology --- p.48 / Chapter 3. --- An Evaluation of the Critical Theology --- p.54 / Chapter 3.1 --- Conclusions --- p.61 / Bibliography --- p.63

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