Group items tagged

contemporary example

This scholarly article outlines the differences between language acquisition and language learning. It also talks about teaching grammar to young children.

Movement while learning can improve concentration and comprehension in the classroom.

It is an honor to be here at the University of Maryland which has worked closely with the Department of Education for more than 20 years to advance the teaching of languages such as Hebrew, Farsi, Chinese, and Russian. As President Obama said on Monday: "Our generation's Sputnik moment is now."

For years it has been thought that teaching a foreign language to preschool-age children would be futile. However, recent studies indicate that the best time for a child to learn another language is in the first three to four years of life. Here are some important reasons for exposing children to early second language learning.

At its most literal level, Ebonics simply means 'black speech' (a blend of the words ebony 'black' and phonics 'sounds'). The term was created in 1973 by a group of black scholars who disliked the negative connotations of terms like 'Nonstandard Negro English' that had been coined in the 1960s when the first modern large-scale linguistic studies of African American speech-communities began. However, the term Ebonics never caught on among linguists, much less among the general public. That all changed with the 'Ebonics' controversy of December 1996 when the Oakland (CA) School Board recognized it as the 'primary' language of its majority African American students and resolved to take it into account in teaching them standard or academic English.

A language teacher began research on pop music and learning after seeing how her students had a remarkable aptitude to memorize song lyrics. The study investigates the mnemonic values of songs and learning.

270 Catholic bishops from around the globe, representing 13 different language groups, will be convening for a week-long meeting this month. Their goal: to come up with a single document of their findings to present to Pope Francis. The final version of that document will be written in the lingua franca of the Catholic Church, which is Italian. Italian has not been the official language for all synod business for very long. Pope Francis changed the official language of synod business from Latin to Italian a couple of years ago. In the past, when the bishops gathered for a synod, they produced documents in Latin. Unlike Latin, Italian is a living language of the real world, and arguably a more neutral linguistic choice than English. However, much controversy has arisen over both translation and ideological issues, and what true meaning and intent is being conveyed by document language and wording. Massimo Faggioli, a theology scholar, noted that under previous popes, the synods worked very differently. Bishops used to gather for the purpose of rubber-stamping Vatican policy. There was no real debate over the true meaning of the official text. "But now, these texts matter," Faggioli says. "[The bishops] know that if they vote on one text or another, that might change the direction of the Catholic church on some teachings, which was not something anybody was thinking about under Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict." Pope Francis has said he wants a more decentralized Catholic Church. And he has encouraged the bishops at the synod to speak boldly, even about subjects on which they disagree. Some of the most contentious issues at this synod are about whether or not to allow Communion to people who've been divorced and remarried, premarital cohabitation, and how the Church should talk about gays and lesbians.

If you want your kids to learn to talk in the best possible way, a new study suggests you should ditch the baby talk and speak to them in normal sentences. The findings suggest that videos that claim to teach toddlers, or flash cards for tots, may not be the best idea.

Table of Contents The Subjectivity of Experience Aspects of the Music-Language Relationship Music As Language The Vocal Origins of Music Talking About Music Specialized Music Languages Teaching by Example Notes Every input to our senses is a stimulus, available for us to interpret as information[1], and from which we can derive further information.

Every time my daughter babbles mem-mem-mem or da-da-da, I get excited that this word will be the first one that makes sense outside of her 1-year-old universe. Recently at breakfast, I even took a video, hoping to document the very moment it happens. But for the past few months, as I have anxiously ...

Sweden has overtaken the Netherlands as having the best non-native English speakers. High proficiency was defined as the ability to carry out complex tasks in English. It is believed that this high proficiency is because of the high standard of language teaching in Sweden, along with subtitled media. In the eight years of testing proficiency in non-native English speaking countries, Sweden has never been below the top five.

"My husband's family couldn't believe he spoke French as if he were living in France," Raphael's mother, Raquel Jegouzo, said. At home, Raquel speaks to Raphael in English and French. His father, Erwan Jegouzo, a native French speaker, speaks to Raphael exclusively in French. The Jegouzos might be doing something right.

According to this article, bilingualism in children is correlated with tissue density in part of the brain responsible for language, memory and attention. This article confronts concerns that teaching a child two languages causes confusion, stating that such barriers are untrue and that bilingualism actually improves linguistic learning.

In this article addressed to teachers, author Julia Csillag cites research on the use of wordless texts to teach students with autism spectrum disorder. Wordless texts can be used to address a variety of skills that autistic students typically struggle with, including diverse literacy skills, cognitive flexibility, and nonverbal communication. Removing words and auditory information also supports autistic students since integrating information from multiple senses can take longer in autistic individuals, particularly if this information is linguistic. Removing words can therefore positively influence processing. Using wordless books or movies can build diverse literacy skills in terms of making inferences, understanding narrative structure, and using evidence to support a claim. All wordless "texts" support individuals' ability to make inferences, which is helpful since research shows that "students with Asperger syndrome…had challenges in making inferences from the text" (Knight & Sartrini, 2014). Moreover, researchers have found that "similar processes contribute to comprehension of narratives across different media" (Kendeou, P. et al, 2009), meaning that addressing visual inferences can transfer to inferences made during reading. Images and silent books or movies necessarily require students to infer what is happening, who the characters are, etc.

This article describes how knowing Latin roots can be beneficial to English learners. Essentially, researchers found that Latin roots help Spanish speaking students learn English by finding connections between certain words.

This article is about how researchers have found that in teaching students who are trying to learn English the Latin roots of words, it has helped them figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Choosing a voice has implications for design, branding or interacting with machines. A voice can change or harden how we see each other. Research suggests that users prefer a younger, female voice for their digital personal assistant. We don't just need that computerized voice to meet our expectations, said Justine Cassell, a professor at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. We need computers to relate to us and put us at ease when performing a task. "We have to know that the other is enough like us that it will run our program correctly," she said. That need seems to start young. Ms. Cassell has designed an avatar of indeterminate race and gender for 5-year-olds. "The girls think it's a girl, and the boys think it's a boy," she said. "Children of color think it's of color, Caucasians think it's Caucasian." Another system Cassell built spoke in what she termed "vernacular" to African-American children, achieving better results in teaching scientific concepts than when the computer spoke in standard English. When tutoring the children in a class presentation, however, "we wanted it to practice with them in 'proper English.' Standard American English is still the code of power, so we needed to develop an agent that would train them in code switching," she said. And, of course, there are regional issues to consider when creating a robotic voice. Many companies, such as Apple, have tweaked robotic voices for localized accents and jokes.

Is English the language of the future? Should we be rushing to teach the children to be fluent in English? Does fluency in English truly mean open doors and opportunity that other languages does not offer? English is a global language and other countries are starting to integrate english fluency in schools. Is this a good idea? Should we be preserving the native language? Is English the bastard language?

Article talks about an adult Okinawan-language class in Hawaii. Okinawan, also known as Uchinaaguchi, is an endangered language--it fell into disuse due to Japanese colonization--hence few native speakers of the language remain. I've posted the text of the article below, as you've got to be a Star-Advertiser subscriber to see the full page: POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 27, 2013 StarAdvertiser.com Learning Okinawan helps preserve culture and identity, an instructor says By Steven Mark In a classroom for preschoolers, a group of adults is trying to revive a language that is foreign to their ear but not to their heart. The language is Okinawan, or "Uchinaaguchi," as it is pronounced in the language itself. The class at Jikoen Hongwanji Mission in Kalihi, as informal as it is, might just be the beginning of a cultural revival thousands of miles to the east of the source. At least that is the hope of Eric Wada, one of the course instructors. "For us, it's the importance of connecting (language) to identity," said Wada, who studied performing arts in Okinawa and is now the artistic director of an Okinawan performing arts group, Ukwanshin Kabudan. "Without the language, you really don't have identity as a people." Okinawa is the name given to a prefecture of Japan, but it was originally the name of the main island of an archipelago known as the Ryukyu Islands that lies about midway between Japan and Taiwan in the East China Sea. For centuries, the Ryukyu kingdom maintained a degree of independence from other East Asian nations. As a result, distinctive cultural practices evolved, from graceful and meditative dance to the martial art called karate and the poetic language that sounds like a blend of Japanese and Korean. The islands were officially annexed by Japan in 1879. The 20th century saw the World War II battle of Okinawa, which claimed more than a quarter of the island's population, the subsequent placement of U.S. military bases and the return of the islands to

This article talks about how the Quakers have had a unique use of pronouns in history. I found it interesting that the Quakers refused to use the proper pronouns for rich people such as "you" in the 1600s. They would call people "thou" regardless of class, but rich people were used to using "thou" for lower people. However, "thou" evolved into "they" which is now presently used.