In a previous study a group of children with cerebral palsy (CP) were found to have considerable difficulties with narratives, performing several standard deviations below the criteria for the Information score of the Bus Story Test (BST). To examine in depth the performance of children with CP and a control group with typically developing (TD)…

This study investigates the combined effects of task-based careful online planning and the storyline structure of a task on second language performance (complexity, accuracy and fluency). Sixty intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned to four groups (n = 15). Participants were asked to perform two tasks with different degrees of storyline…

Contemporary embodiment theory's indexical hypothesis predicts that engaging in text-relevant activity while listening to a story will: (1) enhance memory for enacted story content; and, (2) result in relatively greater memory enhancement for enacted atypical events than for typical ones ([Glenberg and Robertson, 1999] and [Glenberg and Robertson,…

This study explores the diversity of interpretations that can arise in cases where people with hearing loss perceive the information deriving from sound and language differently to how it is perceived by those without hearing impairment. Three experimental situations were designed in which 20 deaf adolescents and 20 hearing classmates view a film…

Analysing the effects of second language (L2) production on L2 learners' interlanguage (IL) modifications is the main scope of this paper. For this purpose, English L2 learners' output production and IL modifications in performing two different task types, one-way and two-way tasks, are compared. The one-way task used in this study was a story…

Twenty 10- to 18-year-old children and adolescents with varying degrees of hearing impairment (HI) and hearing aids (HA), ranging from mild-moderate to severe, produced picture-elicited narratives in a spoken and written version. Their performance was compared to that of 63 normally hearing (NH) peers within the same age span. The participants…

Can increasing the speed of audio narration in multimedia instruction decrease training time and still maintain learning? The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of time-compressed instruction and redundancy on learning and learners' perceptions of cognitive load. 154 university students were placed into conditions that consisted of…

Here, at "FORUM's" invitation, is the text of the 2014 Godfrey Thomson Trust public lecture at the University of Edinburgh. Its backdrop is the centralisation of educational decision-making in England since 1988 and the power and patronage exercised by the Secretary of State. Taking as examples recent policies on childhood, curriculum…

In this article, the author talks about the proper place of theory in educational history and shares his comments on the essays by Eileen Tamura, Carolyn Eick, and Roland Coloma. Eileen Tamura's positing of most educational historians as practitioners of narrative history is surely on the mark. She invites historians of education to investigate…

An animated concept map is a presentation of a network diagram in which nodes and links are sequentially added or modified. An experiment compared learning from animated concept maps and text by randomly assigning 133 undergraduates to study 1 of 4 narrated animations presenting semantically equivalent information accompanied by identical audio…

We evaluated the narrative and expository writing samples of 12 adolescents with language-learning disabilities (LLD) in Grades 6 to 12 for elements of microstructure (e.g., productivity, grammatical complexity) and macrostructure (genre-specific text structure elements) using an experimental measure. Writing samples were elicited with…

Paraeducators are an integral part of instruction in public schools. This study used a multiple baseline across participants design to investigate the ability of a paraeducator to deliver Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) instruction in narrative writing. The paraeducator taught the POW + WWW, What = 2, How = 2-story writing strategy to…

Family dinnertime conversations are key settings where children learn behavior regulation, narrative skills, and knowledge about the world. In this context, parents may also model and socialize gender differences in language. The present study quantitatively examines gendered language use across a family dinnertime recorded with 37 broadly…

Adopted by 46 states, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) present a vision of what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century and call for all students, including English learners, to develop critical reading skills necessary for a deep understanding of complex texts, and critical writing skills to write about those texts. This article…

Digital storytelling is already used extensively in language education. Web documentaries, particularly in terms of design and narrative structure, provide an extension of the digital storytelling concept, specifically in terms of increased interactivity. Using a model of interactive, non-linear storytelling, originally derived from computer game…