Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 103p.; also includes graphics. Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: Mark A. Pitt, Dept. of Psychology. Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-103).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-161). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ59172

This study is a first attempt to explore how non-participant Chinese listener-learners in an EFL context interpret native English speakers' spontaneous conversation. It was designed to incorporate the theoretical models of how secondlforeign language learners derive meaning out of aural stimuli from the point of view of psycholinguistics as well as from a socio-pragmatic perspective. The study begins by identifying the relative contribution of the factors affecting the understanding of English oral input and diagnosing possible causes of poor listening comprehension. It then proceeds to investigate the individual's use of specific strategies so as to identify the most effective strategies for good listening. Finally, this study aims to develop a listening comprehension model, which will not only help to clarify the interpretative processes of Chinese EFL students, but also enable EFL teachers to focus their teaching strategies. The research subjects were fifteen students from two freshman classes of the Department of Civil Engineering and of the Department of Computer and Information Engineering at Chung Yuan Christian University in Taiwan. They grew up and were educated in Taiwan. They were screened by the National Taiwan Universities/Colleges Entrance Exam and considered to be intellectually and cognitively equivalent. They have good first-language listening and reading skills, and are diagnosed as having normal hearing, based on the medical records on file in the Chung Yuan Christian University Health Clinic. As to the findings on factors affecting listening comprehension, linguistic factors, including syntactic cues, semantic cues and semantic-syntactic cues in the text, are not equally important to the learners' understanding process. The learners' ability to catch the semantic cues is highly correlated with their overall listening comprehension performance; their ability to catch the semantic-syntactic cues is moderately correlated with the overall listening comprehension performance; their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary is wealdy correlated with their overall listening comprehension performance. Extra-linguistic factors, including visual, vocal, and contextual support, the speech rate of the speaker, and the repetition of text, play a crucial role in terms of differentiating listening proficiency levels even among advanced learners of English as a foreign language. As to the findings on the strategies of the learners in listening comprehension, the results indicate that there is a significant difference in strategy use between betterlistening groups and poor-listening groups. The highest-ranking group demonstrates higher frequencies of use of the three major categories of strategies (i.e. linguistic, cognitive and extra-linguistic), as well as soliciting more individual strategies. The findings also suggest that TESOL educators should help learners become more conscious of the importance and the development of more cognitively demanding strategies after they have some mastery of linguistic knowledge. Furthermore, the learners' positive attitude towards foreign language acquisition cannot be ignored in attaining a better performance with respect to listening comprehension. Based on the strategies and processes identified in this study, a non-linear listening model, with three levels appropriate for Chinese EFL learners, was developed. The first level consists of such elements as identifying the lexical, syntactic, semantic and contextual cues in the linguistic information and activating background knowledge and previous experiences related to the topic of the text. This level contributes to the formation of idea units and the construction of the sequence of the events, which constitute the elements of the second level. The second level, in turn, has an influence on the composition of a mental image about what is being said. This mental image implies understanding, which is the element of the highest level. Regression analysis is employed to calculate the correlations and weighting between elements and levels. The analyses throughout this model suggest that a higher speed to activate schematic knowledge and the ability to grasp a greater number of idea units are the two most predominant parameters for good listening. An inability or inexperience in sequencing the events from the text would lead a failure in the utmost understanding of the text. Based on the findings, pedagogical implications for language learning were revealed. The following five ideas are promulgated for future research in foreign language teaching. 1. More attention to be paid to sequence construction in listening problems of L2 learners. 2. Similar research on other populations or by using different genres of listening testing materials would strengthen the validation of the proposed model of listening strategies and processes of foreign language learners in an EFL context. 3. More research to be conducted in the investigation of the effects of cognitivedemanding strategies on EFL listening proficiency. 4. A listening strategy shift from Li to L2 would be an interesting area for future in-depth study. 5. Finally, a confirmatory study with a larger sample size is suggested to verify the model proposed in this study.

Though communicative methodologies have been preeminent over the past several decades, the skill of L2/FL pronunciation instruction has remained in the shadows, having been relegated to the sidelines along with the outdated methodologies with which it was taught. The purpose of this study was to gan insight into the efficacy of one types of second language pronunciation instruction: Individualized English pronunciation instruction under the Covert Rehearsal Model (Dickerson, 1989). To this end, seventeen university ESL students from various degree programs were recruited to receive six hours of English pronunciation tutoring spread out across six to eight weeks. Instruction was provided by eleven MA student-teachers (tutors), who concurrently received instruction in applied linguistics and pronunciation pedagogy. To evaluate the actual and perceived efficacy of the model. this study drew upon multiple instruments, such as recorded pre- and post-student-assessments, student and tutor questionnaires, and tutor portfolios. Study results indicated that (a) the individualized pronunciation instruction provided by graduate student-teachers was effective in improving tutees' reading of English reduced vowels, contracted words, intonation contours, and primary phrasal stress, and (b) tutees perceived their instruction as both effective and personally empowering. / text

Not available

<p> Collocations, two or more words that co-occur (e.g., <i>extensive research, conduct a study),</i> are linked with native-like lexical accuracy and fluency. Yet even advanced-level second language (L2) learners frequently have difficulty producing appropriate collocations. To help them achieve accurate and fluent collocation production, researchers believe that L2 writers should take advantage of learner friendly collocation tools. To explore whether L2 writers benefit from collocation tools, the current study examined the effect of three collocation tools (two online and one paper) on accurate production of collocations in L2 writing. The collocation tools included (a) the <i> Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English</i> (LDOCE) (online), (b) <i> Macmillan Collocation Dictionary</i> (MCD) (online), and (c) <i> wordandphrase.info</i> (WPI) (paper).</p><p> L2 writers of English (<i>N</i> = 45) in an intensive English program (IEP) in the southwestern part of the USA were divided into three groups. Each group was provided with collocation training for a different collocation tool. After training, each group used the collocation tool to correct 16 miscollocations (8 verb + noun; 8 adjective + noun) embedded in an essay-format collocation test. After each test, the participants completed a quality review checklist. The procedure was repeated three times so that each group used each tool but in a different order; thus, the study employed a Latin Square Design.</p><p> This study used quantitative data to examine the effect of these three collocation tools on L2 learners&rsquo; ability to self-correct collocations in their own writing. Qualitative data were used to further understand L2 writers&rsquo; use of and perception of the collocation tools.</p><p> The results indicated that online collocation tools (LDOCE and WPI) contributed more than a book collocation dictionary (MCD) to accurate collocation production in L2 writers&rsquo; essays. L2 writers favored WPI because it was easier to navigate and it helped them locate the correct collocations. Furthermore, both online tools, namely, LDOCE and WPI, helped the participants correct more collocations than MCD. Focusing on the type of collocations, the participants made more accurate collocation corrections to adjective + noun collocations than to verb + noun collocations.</p><p> The study has several implications. First, English language teachers need to introduce collocation tools to L2 writers because without such introductions, L2 writers will remain unaware of the availability of useful collocation tools. Second, L2 writers will benefit from explicit collocation introduction to and practice with strategies for using collocation tools effectively. Such training will help L2 writers improve their collocation accuracy and fluency. Third, learners should be able to differentiate verbs, adjectives, and nouns. These parts of speech are important to assist learners in producing appropriate verb + noun and adjective + noun collocations.</p>

As a result of migratory movements in recent decades, an increasing number of children are educated in a language which is not their mother tongue. For these children, learning to read takes place in their second language. This learning context is made unique by two challenges. First, the learning of the written code occurs simultaneously with the learning of the oral language. Second, no reference to the written code of the maternal language is made available to these children. / This particular learning context can lead to inequity between the second language learner and his or her unilingual peers in terms of phonetic encoding and decoding. Furthermore, the limited vocabulary of a beginning language learner can impede the direct lexical access used when learning to read. / Fourteen students were evaluated for their metalinguistical abilities, lexical and phonic knowledge. Following these tests, an analysis was conducted of student reading errors made in a real reading context. / This descriptive study explores the interaction between reading strategies used by second language learners: bottom-up (word comprehension derived from the context of the text) and top-down (text comprehension derived from word recognition). In addition, this study seeks to describe the linguistic and metalinguistic abilities of these second language students in the process of learning to read.

This thesis research examines second generation Canadians’ negotiations of racism and citizenship with the aim of understanding how the former influences the latter. Through questionnaires and focus group discussion, I examine how they understand their racialized experiences and how they believe those experiences are different from, or related to, those of their parents. In addition, I conducted focus groups with an equivalent number of white Canadians in order to observe how the experiences of second generation Canadians of colour differ from those of their white counterparts. The findings of this thesis show that the negotiations of citizenship and racism of second generation Canadians of colour are not only varied, but multidimensional. Focus group discussions reveal that although they experience a variety of forms of racism, participants maintain a relatively positive outlook on Canadian society. This is likely the outcome of processes of identification and rationalization that distinguish them from both their parents and their white counterparts. That their experiences and perceptions of racism are prone to paradox only adds to the necessity for in-depth study and analysis. Although the influences of racism on feelings of belonging in Canada differ, the majority of second generation Canadians of colour report strong attachments to the country. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-26 16:04:43.57

Within the framework of generative grammar, it is assumed that children are endowed with an innate language faculty called Universal Grammar (UG). Children learn their native language on the basis of the interaction of positive evidence in the input with the principles and parameters of UG. In terms of parameter setting, positive evidence consistent with just one value of a parameter causes the preemption of any incorrect settings hypothesized by the child, in accordance with the Uniqueness Principle (Pinker 1984, Wexler and Culicover 1980) which ensures that only one parameter setting can be held at a time in the child's grammar (Berwick 1985). / This thesis investigates the operation of preemption in parameter setting in second language (L2) acquisition in cases where the learner initially adopts the L1 value of a parameter. Focussing on a parametric difference between French and English, namely, the verb movement parameter (Pollock 1989) which relates to (among other things) the placement of adverbs, 58 grade 5 francophone students learning English as a second language in intensive programmes in Quebec schools were exposed over a two week period to a flood of positive evidence on adverb placement in English--input which was consistent with only the English value of the parameter. The results indicate that the subjects did not reset the verb movement parameter to the English value, suggesting that preemption does not function in L2 as in L1 acquisition. Possible explanations for these results and their implications for theories of L2 learnability are developed.

This study primarily examined the use of second language production as a measure of second language text comprehension in 18 first-year nursing students enrolled in French for Nursing courses (nine low-intermediates, nine high-intermediates). / Although few differences were found between the two levels of proficiency with respect to recall and inference, the high-intermediates were more proficient in reading highly variable material and difficult vocabulary in their second language than the low-intermediates as measured by sentence reading times. The within-subjects results indicate a greater amount of propositional recall of the second language text when it was interpreted in the first language than when it was interpreted in the second language.