This study was an ethnographic case study that investigated oral and written language learning in a first grade classroom in Kenya. The languages used in this classroom were Swahili and English only. Kamba the mother tongue of the majority of the children, was banned in the entire school. In this classroom there were 89 children with two teachers,…

Many studies using Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a theoretical platform have emphasized the importance of knowing students' motivational orientations in education, and stated that autonomy-supportive or controlling learning climates are significant to determine students' motivational resources, academic achievement, and classroom engagement.…

Children's literature is a primary source for introducing young children to new words at home and at school, and children's early vocabulary knowledge is a key component of oral language, which is essential for comprehension. This column is focused on children from low socioeconomic backgrounds who frequently find themselves in a vocabulary…

This paper reports the results of an experimental phonetic study examining pitch peak alignment in production and perception of three-syllable one-word sentences with phonetic rising-falling pitch movement by speakers of Russian. The first part of the study (Experiment 1) utilizes 22 one-word three-syllable utterances read by five female speakers…

Twelve parents of young deaf children were recorded sharing books with their deaf child--six from families using British Sign Language (BSL) and six from families using spoken English. Although all families were engaged in sharing books with their deaf child and concerned to promote literacy development, they approached the task differently and…

The particular forms of relative clauses (RCs) in Mandarin Chinese lead to particular cognitive, semantic, pragmatic, and discourse constraints on speakers and writers. In this study, analyses of oral and written Mandarin Chinese narratives demonstrate that SS structures (subject head noun phrase [NP] modified by a subject RC) are produced more…

A considerable body of evidence obtained from studies of children who are deaf and who use cochlear implants has been useful in guiding practices that lead to higher levels of English language proficiency and age-appropriate literacy. Both (a) research conducted at implant centers and (b) educational programs with significant numbers of children…

Whilst much thought has been given to the use of storytelling as a tool in the development of children's oral skills, little has been considered with regard to the role of the teacher as a model of good practice in storytelling, as principle storyteller in the classroom. In this paper I have tried to connect a pragmatic approach to classroom…

When speakers refer to the same referent multiple times in a conversation, they tend to follow established patterns of usage, known as "conversational precedents." Research has found that listeners expect speakers to follow precedents, and that this expectation guides their search for referents (Barr, D. J., & Keysar, B. (2002). "Anchoring…

Purpose: It has been reported that children and adults weight differently the various acoustic properties of the speech signal that support phonetic decisions. This finding is generally attributed to the fact that the amount of weight assigned to various acoustic properties by adults varies across languages, and that children have not yet…

This dissertation reports findings from a study documenting the use of multimedia technology among Indigenous language communities to assist language learners, speakers, instructors, and institutions learn about multimedia technologies that have contributed to Indigenous language revitalization, education, documentation, preservation, and…

With budget cuts and the heavy emphasis placed in recent years on student achievement in language arts and mathematics, arts instruction has been greatly reduced in California elementary schools. Yet the research literature has shown arts instruction to be associated with improved literacy skills (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999). Podlozny (2002),…

This study of L-2 Russian interlanguage production examined the salience of phonetic, lexical and syntactical features for L-1 listener intelligibility, based on L-2 recitation of written scripts (Part I) and also unrehearsed speech (Part II). Part III of the study investigated strategies used by native-speaking teachers of Russian as a Second…

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety is an educational phenomenon that has gained growing attention among researchers over the past three decades. It is a form of anxiety that can be debilitating and arises from various sources. This research examined foreign language classroom-based anxiety experiences of two adult Japanese English language…

The specialty preparation program within the speech-language pathology master's degree program at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, was designed to train speech-language pathologists to work with children who are deaf and hard of hearing, ages 0 to 21. The program is offered in collaboration with the Rochester Institute of Technology,…