Despite acknowledgement of the limited English vocabularies demonstrated by many language minority (LM) learners, few studies have identified skills that relate to variation in vocabulary growth in this population. This study investigated the concurrent development of morphological awareness (i.e., students' understanding of complex words as…

In this study, the Canadian English and French versions of the Problem-Solving Measure of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2003 were examined to investigate their degree of measurement comparability at the item- and test-levels. Three methods of differential item functioning (DIF) were compared: parametric and nonparametric item…

Research on language learning strategies (LLS) has pointed to a significant association at a general level between learners' gender and their choice of LLS. To explore this generality further, we conducted a study on gender and strategy use with Sri Lankan learners (N = 886) of English as a second language (ESL) in five different learning…

Forty-six Consumer Affairs (CA) internship supervisors were surveyed to identify critical knowledge and skills demonstrated by interns and to examine the importance of knowledge and skills needed in the workplace from the supervisors' perspectives.The knowledge and skills measured were identified through program goals. Results revealed that CA…

This case study explores the motivations for code switching (CS) in the interactions of Tunisian students at the faculty of Economics and Management in Sfax, Tunisia. The study focuses on students' (EMSs) classroom conversations and out-of-classroom peer interactions. The analysis of the social motivations of EMSs' CS behaviour shows that…

Upon hearing an ambiguous speech sound dubbed onto lipread speech, listeners adjust their phonetic categories in accordance with the lipread information (recalibration) that tells what the phoneme should be. Here we used sine wave speech (SWS) to show that this tuning effect occurs if the SWS sounds are perceived as speech, but not if the sounds…

The purpose of this dissertation is to empirically test the hypothesis that children's omission of functional elements reflects performance factors (McKee, 1994; McKee & Iwasaki, 2001), rather than lack of knowledge (Felix, 1987; Radford, 1990, 1995; Tomasello, 2000). The multi-level production system treats content and function morphemes…

Listeners segment words from the continuous speech stream in their native language by using rhythmic structure, phrasal structure, and phonotactics (e.g. Christophe et al, 2003: McQueen, 1998). One challenging aspect of second language acquisition is the extraction of words from fluent speech, possibly because learners apply a native language…

The core objective of this study was to examine whether acoustic variability of vowel production in American English, across speaking tasks, is systematic. Ten male speakers who spoke a relatively homogeneous Wisconsin dialect produced eight monophthong vowels (in hVd and CVC contexts) in four speaking tasks, including clear-speech, citation form,…

Proficiency in oral communication is necessary in school and in society. To do well in the different curriculum areas, pupils must speak with clarity and understanding. For example, in a discussion group in the social studies involving the topic "the pros and cons of raising taxes," pupils need to express knowledgeable ideas with appropriate voice…

Effective communication is essential for young children's academic and social competence. During the preschool years, children acquire the language and communication skills necessary to express their needs, thoughts, and feelings in social interactions, and they learn to respond appropriately to others. Through effective communication, they also…

We examined the effects of presentation rate on speech perception in noise and its relation to reading in 117 typically developing (TD) children and 10 children with reading difficulties (RD) in Japan. Responses in a speech perception task were measured for speed, accuracy, and stability in two conditions that varied stimulus presentation rate:…

Narrative discourse is an essential component of day-to-day communication, but little is known about narrative in Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including Parkinson's disease (PD), Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We performed a detailed analysis of a semi-structured speech sample in 32 non-aphasic…

The goal of this research was to examine the effects of phonological familiarity and rehearsal method (vocal vs. subvocal) on novel word learning. In Experiment 1, English-speaking adults learned phonologically familiar novel words that followed English phonological structure. Participants learned half the words via vocal rehearsal (saying the…

"WebGrader" is an online instrument developed to evaluate and assess oral competency in the basic course. It is the result of a 15-year study, using Morreale and Hackman's (1994) work as a general model, and "The Competent Speaker" speech rating criteria in particular (Morreale, Moore, Taylor, Surges-Tatum, & Hulbert-Johnson, 1990; Morreale,…