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Early reading instruction and identification of learners with reading problems prevent reading difficulties in the Intermediate Phase. The specific aim of this study is to explore the role of the Intermediate Phase educator to assess the learners’ reading skills by using observation and assessment activities, in order to identify learners with reading problems. The literature study on reading activities explored the letters of the alphabet, phonemic awareness, spelling, word- recognition, assessment and word-knowledge. The qualitative research was conducted empirically in the form of a case study of one learner from the South African public primary school based in Ikageng location, Potchefstroom. The role of the Intermediate Phase educator is to develop and administer the reading activities, observe a learner when he or she recites; writes and identifies the letters of the alphabet; segment words to show his or her phonological awareness skill; spell words in the dictation test including any written activity; and reads aloud the single written words to test his or her word recognition ability. The themes that emerged from the empirical study are as follows: difficulty in sequencing written letters of the alphabet, inability to segment words, spelling problems and word recognition problems. The study indicated that the participant’s reading problems are based on an inability to decode single words. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Educational Psychology)

Text in Afrikaans / Learners who struggle to read from the start, will stay behind. But the earlier intervention can start, the greater the chances of success. But what type of intervention is needed? Nowadays researchers overseas use phonemic awareness as a criteria to predict reading success. About 80% of pre-school children will have no trouble grasping the phonological structure of their home language, provided that they are thoroughly immersed in literacy. It is these same 80% who will not have any trouble learning to read. But literacy is a continuous process that starts at birth and there is no magical moment in a child's life that he will all of a sudden be ready to receive literacy instruction. Experience and practice will ensure that the hierarchy of phonemic awareness skills will develop. Those preschoolers who do not have that advantage, must develop phonemic awareness skills while learning to read or else face reading problems. / Educational Studies / M. Ed.(Special Needs Education)

Attendees will learn free, specific multimedia resources to entice children to read as well as to improve fluency in vocabulary and comprehension. The majority of young readers are captivated by mobile devices and the Internet. Why not use this to our advantage in reading instruction. Join us to discover games, websites, and apps that engage children and improve phonemic awareness, spelling, vocabulary development, and comprehension.

Dans les procédures judiciaires, des enregistrements de voix sont de plus en plus fréquemment présentés comme élément de preuve. En général, il est fait appel à un expert scientifique pour établir si l’extrait de voix en question a été prononcé par un suspect donné (prosecution hypothesis) ou non (defence hypothesis). Ce prosessus est connu sous le nom de “Forensic Voice Comparison (FVC)” (comparaison de voix dans le cadre judiciaire). Depuis l’émergence du modèle DNA typing, l’approche Bayesienne est devenue le nouveau “golden standard” en sciences criminalistiques. Dans cette approche, l’expert exprime le résultat de son analyse sous la forme d’un rapport de vraisemblance (LR). Ce rapport ne favorise pas seulement une des hypothèses (“prosecution” ou “defence”) mais il fournit également le poids de cette décision. Bien que le LR soit théoriquement suffisant pour synthétiser le résultat, il est dans la pratique assujetti à certaines limitations en raison de son processus d’estimation. Cela est particulièrement vrai lorsque des systèmes de reconnaissance automatique du locuteur (ASpR) sont utilisés. Ces systèmes produisent un score dans toutes les situations sans prendre en compte les conditions spécifiques au cas étudié. Plusieurs facteurs sont presque toujours ignorés par le processus d’estimation tels que la qualité et la quantité d’information dans les deux enregistrements vocaux, la cohérence de l’information entre les deux enregistrements, leurs contenus phonétiques ou encore les caractéristiques intrinsèques des locuteurs. Tous ces facteurs mettent en question la notion de fiabilité de la comparaison de voix dans le cadre judiciaire. Dans cette thèse, nous voulons adresser cette problématique dans le cadre des systèmes automatiques (ASpR) sur deux points principaux. Le premier consiste à établir une échelle hiérarchique des catégories phonétiques des sons de parole selon la quantité d’information spécifique au locuteur qu’ils contiennent. Cette étude montre l’importance du contenu phonétique: Elle met en évidence des différences intéressantes entre les phonèmes et la forte influence de la variabilité intra-locuteurs. Ces résultats ont été confirmés par une étude complémentaire sur les voyelles orales basée sur les paramètres formantiques, indépendamment de tout système de reconnaissance du locuteur. Le deuxième point consiste à mettre en œuvre une approche afin de prédire la fiabilité du LR à partir des deux enregistrements d’une comparaison de voix sans recours à un ASpR. À cette fin, nous avons défini une mesure d’homogénéité (NHM) capable d’estimer la quantité d’information et l’homogénéité de cette information entre les deux enregistrements considérés. Notre hypothèse ainsi définie est que l’homogénéité soit directement corrélée avec le degré de fiabilité du LR. Les résultats obtenus ont confirmé cette hypothèse avec une mesure NHM fortement corrélée à la mesure de fiabilité du LR. Nos travaux ont également mis en évidence des différences significatives du comportement de NHM entre les comparaisons cibles et les comparaisons imposteurs. Nos travaux ont montré que l’approche “force brute” (reposant sur un grand nombre de comparaisons) ne suffit pas à assurer une bonne évaluation de la fiabilité en FVC. En effet, certains facteurs de variabilité peuvent induire des comportements locaux des systèmes, liés à des situations particulières. Pour une meilleure compréhension de l’approche FVC et/ou d’un système ASpR, il est nécessaire d’explorer le comportement du système à une échelle aussi détaillée que possible (le diable se cache dans les détails) / It is common to see voice recordings being presented as a forensic trace in court. Generally, a forensic expert is asked to analyse both suspect and criminal’s voice samples in order to indicate whether the evidence supports the prosecution (same-speaker) or defence (different-speakers) hypotheses. This process is known as Forensic Voice Comparison (FVC). Since the emergence of the DNA typing model, the likelihood-ratio (LR) framework has become the new “golden standard” in forensic sciences. The LR not only supports one of the hypotheses but also quantifies the strength of its support. However, the LR accepts some practical limitations due to its estimation process itself. It is particularly true when Automatic Speaker Recognition (ASpR) systems are considered as they are outputting a score in all situations regardless of the case specific conditions. Indeed, several factors are not taken into account by the estimation process like the quality and quantity of information in both voice recordings, their phonological content or also the speakers intrinsic characteristics, etc. All these factors put into question the validity and reliability of FVC. In this Thesis, we wish to address these issues. First, we propose to analyse how the phonetic content of a pair of voice recordings affects the FVC accuracy. We show that oral vowels, nasal vowels and nasal consonants bring more speaker-specific information than averaged phonemic content. In contrast, plosive, liquid and fricative do not have a significant impact on the LR accuracy. This investigation demonstrates the importance of the phonemic content and highlights interesting differences between inter-speakers effects and intra-speaker’s ones. A further study is performed in order to study the individual speaker-specific information for each vowel based on formant parameters without any use of ASpR system. This study has revealed interesting differences between vowels in terms of quantity of speaker information. The results show clearly the importance of intra-speaker variability effects in FVC reliability estimation. Second, we investigate an approach to predict the LR reliability based only on the pair of voice recordings. We define a homogeneity criterion (NHM) able to measure the presence of relevant information and the homogeneity of this information between the pair of voice recordings. We are expecting that lowest values of homogeneity are correlated with the lowest LR’s accuracy measures, as well as the opposite behaviour for high values. The results showed the interest of the homogeneity measure for FVC reliability. Our studies reported also large differences of behaviour between FVC genuine and impostor trials. The results confirmed the importance of intra-speaker variability effects in FVC reliability estimation. The main takeaway of this Thesis is that averaging the system behaviour over a high number of factors (speaker, duration, content...) hides potentially many important details. For a better understanding of FVC approach and/or an ASpR system, it is mandatory to explore the behaviour of the system at an as-detailed-as-possible scale (The devil lies in the details).

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier l’effet d’un entraînement explicite de la conscience phonémique (CP) en anglais L2 et les apports potentiels du tableau blanc interactif (TBI) comme instrument permettant de réaliser cet entraînement avec des apprenants de CE1. A partir des travaux de pédagogues tels que Borel-Maisonny et Caleb Gattegno, nous avons conçu des aides multimodales qui sont à la fois visuelles, sonores et kinesthésiques. Les couleurs de l’approche Gattegno ont été reprises pour créer des cartes de couleur auxquelles nous avons joint une représentation sonore du phonème. La carte sonore est également manipulable sur le TBI. En ce sens, la manipulation sur TBI pourrait aider la manipulation mentale des éléments. Les représentations des phonèmes constituent des représentations externes multimodales intégrées (REMI). Ces REMI ont été intégrées à un dispositif d’apprentissage permettant de valider les hypothèses de recherche. Il s’agissait non seulement d’évaluer l’efficacité de tâches explicites de conscience phonémique dans le cadre de l’apprentissage de l’anglais, mais également d’évaluer l’efficacité de l’utilisation du TBI pour réaliser les tâches de conscience phonémique. Ces hypothèses de recherche ont été testées à l’aide de trois groupes d’apprenants : deux groupes expérimentaux et un groupe contrôle. Un groupe a effectué des tâches explicites de conscience phonémique avec les REMI sur TBI (groupe ConsPhonoTBI), un groupe a effectué ces mêmes tâches de manière classique, c’est-à-dire mentalement sans aide multimodale (groupe ConsPhono), tandis que le groupe contrôle a fait des activités de vocabulaire anglais. La comparaison du groupe contrôle avec le groupe ConsPhono permet de déterminer l’effet d’un entraînement explicite de la conscience phonémique, tandis que la comparaison du groupe ConsPhono avec le groupe ConsPhonoTBI permet de déterminer l’effet des aides multimodales et de leur utilisation sur TBI dans le cadre de cet entraînement explicite. Cette recherche a pour objet une intervention dans le domaine du travail puisque les enseignants et les apprenants sont considérés comme étant en situation de travail. Cette recherche s’inscrit alors dans le cadre de l’ergonomie cognitive. En l’occurrence, la quasi-expérimentation a été menée en 2011-2012 auprès d’apprenants issus de classes de CE1 situées dans l’Isère. Dans la méthodologie de recherche mixte adoptée, les données qualitatives et quantitatives ont été triangulées et permettent d’obtenir des résultats ayant une validité interne. L’étude indique que le travail explicite de la conscience phonémique a un effet sur le niveau atteint dans ce domaine et que l’utilisation des REMI sur TBI permet d’atteindre un meilleur niveau dans le même laps de temps. Par ailleurs, cette étude indique que l’utilisation du TBI pour mener cet entraînement explicite permet à des enseignants non-spécialistes en langue de se décentrer pour réguler l’activité, de proposer une prononciation correcte aux élèves, renforçant ainsi le sentiment d’auto-efficacité au sens de Bandura (2003). En outre, le TBI favorise les échanges entre les apprenants au niveau du groupe classe et permet une découverte collective des phonèmes anglais. / This thesis seeks to study the effect of an explicit training of phonemic awareness (PA) in English L2 and the possible contribution of an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) as a tool to carry such a training with 7-8 year old learners (in CE1 in France). Based on the work of some educators like Borel-Maisonny and Caleb Gattegno, we created some multimodal materials which are visual, sound and kinesthetic. We used the colors from Gattegno’s approach to create cards to which we attached the sound representation of each phoneme. These cards could also be moved on the IWB. Hence, the manipulation done on the IWB might help the mental manipulation that the learner should normally do mentally. The full representation for each phoneme is an external multimodal integrated representation (EMIR). These EMIR were used among a learning scenario which aimed to test research hypotheses. First of all, the aim was to know whether explicit tasks of phonemic awareness were useful or not. Then, the aim was to check the effect, in any, of the IWB in such a learning scenario concerning phonemic awareness. These research hypotheses have been tested thanks to three groups: two experimental groups and one control group. One group carried out the activities of phonemic awareness with EMIR on an IWB (PA-IWB group), one group carried out the same activities but on a traditional way, that-is-to-say mentally with any multimodal help (PA group) while the control group carried out some activities based on vocabulary. By comparing the control group with the PA group, we found out the effect, if any, of the explicit training of phonemic awareness and, by comparing the PA group with the PA-IWB group, we found out the effect, if any, of the multimodal tools used on the IWB. This research aims to take action in the field of ergonomics since teachers and learners are considered as being at work. This research fits into the field of cognitive ergonomics. Here, the quasi-experimentation was carried out during the school year 2011-2012 with 7-8 year old learners from Isère, France. Using a mixed research method, we triangulated qualitative data with quantitative data in order to get the most accurate results with an internal validity. This study shows that an explicit training of phonemic awareness (PA) has an effect on the level that learners can reach in PA and that the use of EMIR on an IWB allows learners to get an even better level in the same amount of time. Besides, it also appears that the use of the IWB for this kind of training helps the teacher when s/he is not a specialist in the target language. S/he can step aside, regulate the work and provide the correct pronunciation, which helps her/him reinforcing her/his feeling of self-efficacy as defined by Bandura (2003). Finally, the IWB urges the learners on interacting as a whole group and so discovering the English phonemes all together.

Text in Afrikaans / Learners who struggle to read from the start, will stay behind. But the earlier intervention can start, the greater the chances of success. But what type of intervention is needed? Nowadays researchers overseas use phonemic awareness as a criteria to predict reading success. About 80% of pre-school children will have no trouble grasping the phonological structure of their home language, provided that they are thoroughly immersed in literacy. It is these same 80% who will not have any trouble learning to read. But literacy is a continuous process that starts at birth and there is no magical moment in a child's life that he will all of a sudden be ready to receive literacy instruction. Experience and practice will ensure that the hierarchy of phonemic awareness skills will develop. Those preschoolers who do not have that advantage, must develop phonemic awareness skills while learning to read or else face reading problems. / Educational Studies / M. Ed.(Special Needs Education)

The present dissertation brings reflections on the initial teaching and learning of reading for literacy and citizenship, taking as object of investigation the textbook: Porta Aberta: letramento e alfabetização – 1º. Ano, da Ed. FTD, de Carpaneda & Bragança (2011), commonly adopted in public schools in Aracaju / SE. It aims to analyze the way how this book introduces the vowel and consonantal letters, in the light of the theoretical-methodological assumptions of the Scliar System of Literacy, considering (or not) the order of increasing complexity in the introduction of graphemes for the initial learning of the reading, such as the simplicity of the traces that make up the letters and their articulation; listening for the realization of the most perceptible phonemes by the learner, represented by the respective grapheme; the biunivocity relationship of each one of them; the graphemes that represent phonemes without variants determined by the phonetic context, among other complexities, as well as if the letters are (or aren't) presented by their names or the value that they represent. The theoretical-methodological foundations are firmly established in the works of Scliar-Cabral (2016; 2014; 2013b; 2007; 2003), whose purposes serve teaching practices aligned with the advanced discoveries of neuroscience, psycholinguistics, linguistics and the science concern to education, with emphasis on teaching strategies that highlight the importance of recognizing the graphic traits that identify the letters and the phonemic and phonological awareness in this initial phase of literacy. We know that, although the teaching of reading is compulsory in schools, the central focus for the development of this educational process is always more focused on the mechanical writing of letters, which imply the detriment of the effective learning process: there it is the causes of low reading and writing performance, according to the results presented in various National Assessments (ANA, 2015). We understand that unfortunately, even facing such a low reading performance of our children, the school still ends up silencing these questions, by not proposing an initial reading learning with more criticism, reflection and investment in the continued education of literacy teachers. It opts, then, for the reproduction of outdated approaches that, admittedly, present terrible results in national and international evaluations, starting with textbooks, sometimes they are not recommended by psycholinguistics scholars and related sciences that turn to the promising teaching of that specific ability, as evidenced in this study. The results of the work show that the methodology adopted in the textbook Porta Aberta: letramento e alfabetização – 1º. ano contrary to the advances already achieved for a scientifically based literacy by presenting the letters through nomination and according to the order of the alphabet and not according to the complexity of articulation of the traits that make them up, elencada in this study, and by introducing the vowel letters without interacting with the consonants. Finally, we believe that a process of the initial learning of reading for the exercise of citizenship passes through the automation of the recognition of: 1º - what are, how many are and how the traces that form the letters are combined; 2º what are the graphemes of written Brazilian Portuguese and the respective values (phonemes) that they represent (phonemic awareness); 3º - where the graphic accent of greater intensity goes in the stressed words and identification of the most frequent unstressed words, like articles and the coordinating conjunction "and", which allows the fast and fluent reading, to achive the textual understanding. / A presente dissertação traz reflexões sobre o ensino e a aprendizagem iniciais de leitura para o letramento e cidadania, tomando como objeto de investigação o livro didático Porta Aberta: letramento e alfabetização – 1º. Ano, da Ed. FTD, de Carpaneda & Bragança (2011), comumente adotado em escolas públicas de Aracaju/SE. Objetiva analisar o modo como o referido livro introduz as letras1 vocálicas e consonantais, à luz dos pressupostos teórico-metodológicos do Sistema Scliar de Alfabetização, atentando (ou não) à ordem de complexidade crescente na introdução de grafemas para a aprendizagem inicial da leitura, tais como a simplicidade dos traços que compõem as letras e sua articulação; a escuta da realização dos fonemas mais perceptíveis pelo aprendiz, representados pelo respectivo grafema; a relação de biunivocidade de cada um deles; os grafemas que representam fonemas sem variantes determinadas pelo contexto fonético, dentre outras complexidades, bem como se as letras são (ou não) apresentadas pelo seu nome ou pelo valor que elas representam. Os fundamentos teórico-metodológicos firmam-se nos trabalhos de Scliar-Cabral (2016; 2014; 2013b; 2007; 2003), cujos propósitos atendem a práticas de ensino alinhadas às descobertas avançadas da neurociência, da psicolinguística, da linguística e das ciências voltadas à educação, com ênfase nas estratégias de ensino que relevam a importância do reconhecimento dos traços gráficos que identificam as letras e da consciência fonêmica e fonológica nesta fase inicial da alfabetização. Sabemos que, embora o ensino da leitura seja obrigatório nas escolas, o foco central para o desenvolvimento desse processo educacional costuma estar sempre mais voltado para a escrita mecânica das letras, em detrimento do processo efetivo de aprendizagem: estão aí as causas dos baixos índices de rendimento em leitura e escrita, conforme os resultados apresentados nas diversas Avaliações Nacionais (ANA, 2015). Entendemos que, infelizmente, mesmo diante de desempenho em leitura tão baixo de nossas crianças, a escola ainda acabe silenciando essas questões, ao não propor uma aprendizagem inicial da leitura com mais criticidade, reflexão e investimento na formação continuada de alfabetizadores. Opta, então, pela reprodução de abordagens ultrapassadas que, reconhecidamente, apresentam péssimos resultados nas avaliações nacionais e internacionais, a começar, pelos livros didáticos, por vezes, não recomendados por estudiosos da psicolinguística e das ciências afins que se voltam para o ensino promissor da referida habilidade, como evidenciamos no presente estudo. Os resultados do trabalho evidenciam que a metodologia adotada no livro didático Porta Aberta: letramento e alfabetização – 1º. ano contraria os avanços já alcançados para uma alfabetização cientificamente fundamentada, por apresentar as letras mediante a nomeação e conforme a ordem do alfabeto e não conforme a complexidade de articulação dos traços que as compõem, elencada no presente estudo, e por introduzir as letras vocálicas sem interação com as consoantes. Por fim, acreditamos que um processo da aprendizagem inicial da leitura para o exercício da cidadania passa pela automatização do reconhecimento de: 1º - quais são, quantos são e como se combinam os traços que formam as letras; 2º quais são os grafemas do português brasileiro escrito e os respectivos valores (fonemas) que eles representam (consciência fonêmica); 3º - onde cai o acento de intensidade maior nos vocábulos tônicos e identificação dos vocábulos átonos mais frequentes, como artigos e a conjunção coordenativa “e”, o que permite a leitura rápida e fluente, para se chegar à compreensão textual. / São Cristóvão, SE

Ce travail s’intéresse à l’application de la phonétique expérimentale [acoustique et perceptive] à la didactique de la prononciation des langues étrangères. Le propos est illustré par les difficultés d’apprentissage par des japonophones des voyelles du français ; les expériences portent spécifiquement sur les voyelles -u y ø-. Le but est d’élucider les difficultés que présentent ces phones selon que leur statut phonémique et leur réalisation phonétique diffèrent ou non entre la langue maternelle et la langue apprise. Le -u- français diffère phonétiquement de son équivalent phonémique, le -u- japonais. L’étude confirme que le -u- français, phonémiquement « similaire » au -u- japonais, est plus difficile que la voyelle « nouvelle » -y-, qui n'a pas d'équivalent ni phonémique ni phonétique en japonais. La production du -ø-, qui est « nouveau » phonémiquement mais proche du -u- japonais au plan acoustique, semble présenter encore moins de difficulté. La thèse apporte également une réflexion sur la didactique de la prononciation. L’analyse de manuels généralistes de français publiés au Japon suggère que les apprenants et les enseignants sont rarement conscients de la différence de difficultés des -u y ø-. Quelques méthodes d’enseignement de la prononciation – certaines traditionnelles, d’autres innovantes – sont proposées, dans l’idée de favoriser la conscientisation de ces difficultés. Le but de cette thèse est une contribution à l’éclaircissement des processus d’apprentissage de la prononciation des langues étrangères, et à l’amélioration de son apprentissage et de son enseignement. / This dissertation deals with the application of experimental [acoustic and perceptual] phonetics to the teaching of pronunciation. The issue is illustrated by Japanese speakers’ difficulties in learning French vowels in general. Experiments were specifically conducted on the vowels -u y ø-. The objective is to elucidate the case of individual phones depending on whether or not their phonemic status and their phonetic realisation differ in the two languages under study. French -u- differs phonetically from its phonemic counterpart, Japanese -u-. The present study confirms that French -u-, which is phonemically “similar” [to Japanese -u-], turns out to be more difficult than the “new” vowel -y-, which has no phonemic or phonetic counterpart in Japanese. The production of -ø-, which is phonemically “new” but acoustically close to Japanese -u-, seems to present still less difficulty. The dissertation also brings a reflection on t! he teaching of pronunciation. The analysis of general French textbooks published in Japan suggests that learners and teachers are seldom aware of the difference in the difficulties caused by the three vowels -u y ø-. Also, some methods of pronunciation teaching [some traditional, others new] are presented in terms of how they foster learners’ awareness of these difficulties. The goal of this dissertation is to help to shed light on the learning processes of the pronunciation of foreign languages, and to improve its learning and teaching.