Explored the role of folktales of deception in developing 3- and 4-year-olds' theory of mind. Found that the story's deceptions elicit discussions that change over successive readings as the child shows increasing comprehension of the deceptions and decreasing need of parental support. Parent's and child's gender influenced frequency and…

Describes a working model used to determine the target language use in a language for specific purpose test project: the Listening Summary Translation Exam in Taiwanese (LSTE/T). The purpose of the LSTE/T was to evaluate the summary translation ability of applicants who want to work as linguists in law enforcement agencies in the United States.…

Reports on a project to develop and validate a criterion-referenced performance test of listening summary translation ability. This exam is designed to assess ability to comprehend and summarize in written English recorded conversations spoken in Spanish. The Bachman framework is used to present the test and provide evidence for its validity. (12…

Sixteen fifth through eighth graders with mild mental retardation were given three tasks emphasizing phonemic aspects of comprehension. Comparison with younger students without mental retardation suggested that ineffective use of phonemic coding in working memory may contribute to comprehension difficulties in children with mental retardation.…

Postage stamps provide second-language instructors with colorful and appealing materials to emphasize the four language skills and to introduce cultural topics. The use of visual materials in the classroom increases student interest, bestows a sense of the context of the language, and provides a specific reference point of stimulus. (41…

Examined relation of maternal age to 4-year-olds' verbal comprehension and mother-child interactions on a book-sharing task. Found children of mothers ages 35 and over at child's birth scored significantly higher on verbal comprehension than children of younger mothers. Found no maternal age differences on the book-sharing task. Findings pose…

Evaluated the effect of listening to stories on children's vocabulary growth. Children acquired new vocabulary from listening to stories, with both frequency of exposure and teacher explanation of target words enhancing vocabulary learning. The interventions, however, were not sufficient to overcome the Matthew effect, as higher ability children…

Discusses a survey of language instructors that was conducted to examine the relationship between second-language (L2) listening research, pedagogical theory, and practice. Descriptive and qualitative analyses of the responses suggest that there are gaps between L2 listening research and practice. Suggestions for closing this gap are proposed.…

Explores the usefulness of the criterion of authenticity for the selection and evaluation of English for academic purposes materials. Using a student questionnaire and techniques of discourse analysis based on Halliday's concepts of field, tenor, and mode, the levels of difficulty and relevance of materials using four media was investigated.…

Describes home literacy experiences of six Chinese English-as-a-second-language kindergartners. Includes the parents' provision of literate home environments as well as children's functional use of Chinese and English and engagement in Chinese and English literacy activities. Indicates the diverse and cultural nature of the home literacy…

The purpose of this study was to (a) examine how the reading skills of children at-risk are affected by tutoring by preservice reading endorsement students, (b) to identify differences by setting, gender and grade level, and to (c) identify effective strategies and influences on student success in a four-month tutoring program. Data were collected…

This study examined the efficacy of using an integrated learning system (ILS) to augment kindergarten emergent reading skills. This quasi-experimental design used repeated measures. Change scores were calculated to run analyses. Effect sizes were calculated using Cohen, with large effect sizes noted for phonological awareness and knowledge of…

Purpose: Research comparing the intelligibility of human and synthesized speech among both young children and adults has indicated that synthesized speech results in a degrading of intelligibility. The purpose of this study was to compare speech intelligibility of high-probability sentences produced using DECtalk[R] "Perfect Paul" and live speech…

This article outlines a small-scale study of metacognitive instruction for young second language listeners and discusses the value of lessons that highlight the listening process. Ten primary school pupils participated in eight specially designed listening lessons that included traditional listening exercises, individual post-listening reflections…

Situated in the context of learning second language (L2) pronunciation, this article discusses from information-processing and pedagogical perspectives the role of repetitive practice with L2 input and of explicit focus on its form-related (phonological) properties. First, we report the results of an auditory word-priming experiment with 60 L2…