D/deaf children of Deaf parents reportedly begin learning finger-spelling as young as thirteen months old, but deaf children born to hearing, nonsigning parents lack natural access to the native (spoken) language of their families, often exhibiting later language development. Forty-four deaf adults participated in a fingerspelling test of…

The ability to map similar sounding words to different meanings alone is far from enough for successful speech processing. To overcome variability in the speech signal, young learners must also recognize words across surface variations. Previous studies have shown that infants at 14 months are able to use variations in word-internal cues (i.e.,…

This paper addresses the subject of the semiosis process in the transactions between teachers and students about the knowledge at stake in science education. We present a conceptualisation of these transactions as a joint action between students and teachers. This conceptualisation enables us to understand the semiosis process as it unfolds during…

Technology provides occasions for language learners to engage in authentic communication with native speakers around the world. However, in order for such language learning to be successful, it must take into account learners' affective or emotional needs. Traditional approaches to language learning have neglected the affective domain. This study…

The present article aims to shed light on the relationship between priming and creativity throughout Chinese children's ontogenetic development. It has been suggested that priming in naturalistic interaction occurs not as an exclusively implicit phenomenon. New methodological desiderata beyond traditional acceptability judgments have been…

This study examined the use of a popular Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Google Voice Typing (GVT), to automatically assess English as second language pronunciation. It aimed to answer the following question: What is the relationship between GVT-rated scores and human-rated scores? To answer this question, we compared audio recordings of 56…

Helping English learners and students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds read and perform academically as well as their more advantaged peers remains a struggle for many schools seeking equitable outcomes for their students. Research suggests that an increased focus on learning of academic language--the formal language used to read,…

The overarching goal of this design-based research was to explore WhatsApp's potential for facilitating and supporting speaking and pronunciation instruction in an EFL large-class speaking course. More specifically, this paper explored the perceived learning outcomes of WhatsApp-supported pedagogy in large English-speaking classes. Ninety-nine…

This study examined experiences and viewpoints of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' regarding the integration of QR codes into writing and speaking practices at the tertiary-level L2 learning. Employing an action research design, researchers collected qualitative data through online interviews, a survey of open-ended questions, and…

Developing effective oral business English (OBE) curricula requires clearly understanding student needs. This study evaluated the speaking needs of Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) undergraduates majoring in business English for specific purposes (ESP), aiming to inform the design of a teaching module that bridges the gap between…

The paper is focused on the study of the interconnection of context and evaluative utterances in French. The assessment of different aspects of the world is viewed as a considerable part of human cognitive activities. Considering this, in the paper evaluative utterances are analysed in relation to logical, semantic, pragmatic and communicative…

Individual variability in infant's language processing is partly explained by environmental factors, like the quantity of parental speech input, as well as by infant-specific factors, like speech production. Here, we explore how these factors affect infant word segmentation. We used an artificial language to ensure that only statistical…

How we are to understand the formative and informative processes of language? At one level, language is understood as a medium for communicating knowledge through propositions that form or represent cognitive understanding and so can be defined as informative. The concern of this article is to explore the scope of this notion of linguistic and…

Basil Bernstein argues that speech events bear class characteristics, and different social classes exhibit different linguistic typologies, coding and meaning. Although working-class language is characterized as a closed code in terms of its language structure, it possesses unique educational power, specifically manifesting as its unique meanings…

This proof-of-concept study examined the feasibility of a new scoring procedure designed to reduce the time of scoring a video-based public speaking assessment task. Instead of scoring the video in its entirety, the performance was evaluated based on content-related (e.g., speech organization, word choice) and delivery-related (e.g., vocal…