We tested an embodied account of language proposing that comprehenders create perceptual simulations of the events they hear and read about. In Experiment 1, children (ages 7-13 years) performed a picture verification task. Each picture was preceded by a prerecorded spoken sentence describing an entity whose shape or orientation matched or…

A reliability analysis was conducted on the Written Expression Scale from the Oral and Written Language Scales, (OWLS, Carrow-Woolfolk, 1996), with 68 ESL and 56 non-ESL kindergarten students. Interrater and internal consistency estimates for the Written Expression Scale were examined separately for each language group. Despite lower oral English…

Using archival admissions records and case histories of patients at a British asylum from the 1860s to the 1870s, the authors examine the medical certification process leading to the asylum confinement of individuals judged to be "of unsound mind." These institutional texts are, the authors suggest, "occult genres" that…

Objective: To examine written expression and the executive function skills (working memory, verbal fluency, and planning and organization) involved in written expression in college-aged students with ADHD. Method: Two groups of undergraduate students, aged 19 to 28 years, (ADHD, n = 31; control, n = 27) are evaluated on selected measures of…

The paper-and-pencil programming strategy (PPS) is a way of representing an idea logically by any representation that can be created using paper and pencil. It was developed for non-computer majors to improve their understanding and use of computational thinking and increase interest in learning computer science. A total of 110 non-majors in their…

In Norway there are two written Norwegian languages, Bokmâl and Nynorsk. Of these two written languages Bokmâl is being used by the majority of the people, and Bokmâl has the highest prestige in the society. This article is about the shift of written language from Nynorsk to Bokmâl among young people in a traditional Nynorsk district in the…

The article discusses the potential of combining learner corpus research with experimental studies in order to fine-tune the understanding of learner language development. It illustrates the complementarity of the two methodological approaches with data from an ongoing study of the acquisition of the English tense and aspect system by French…

Based on qualitative data obtained from 15 South Asian (SA) B.Ed. (EL) (Bachelor of Education in English Language) students, this study reports on SA students' difficulty in mastering Mandarin-based written Chinese and the vernacular Cantonese in Hong Kong. For convenience, SA here also refers to students whose homeland is the Philippines. Since…

The goal of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School," is to provide four recommendations for teaching complex content to English learners while simultaneously building academic language and writing and oral language proficiency. This…

The purpose of this study was to determine what difficulties King Saud University students encounter when learning to write academic English and to differentiate between students' learning needs and objectives. The sample consisted of 50 postgraduate students enrolled in King Saud University during the academic year 2009-2010. Analysis of the data…

The mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) measures have become widely used among researchers both within and outside the U.S. Despite the apparent success, the MKT measures and underlying framework have been subject to criticism. The multiple-choice format of the items has been criticized, and some critics have suggested that opening up the…

This study aims to provide a greater insight into how formative assessments are experienced and understood by students. Two different formative assessment methods, an individual, written assessment and an oral group assessment, were components of a pathology course within a medical curriculum. In a cohort of 70 students, written accounts were…

This study investigated the effects of simultaneous written text on the comprehension of spoken English as a foreign language, when the text is presented with the aid of a personal digital assistant (PDA) as a learning tool. Eighty-seven university students majoring in applied foreign languages were randomly assigned to either listening with…

This study examines to what extent L2 gains obtained during a study abroad (SA) experience are durable. Participants were 16 Catalan/Spanish bilingual children, learning English as an L2, who were distributed into two groups depending on their learning context (SA vs. at home [AH]). Participants completed a pre-test before the SA participants'…

In this paper, I investigate the phenomenon of morphological variability in the production of Italian determiners, descriptive adjectives, and direct object pronouns by adult English learners of Italian to determine whether morphological errors are the result of computational or representational difficulties. Second language acquisitionists do…