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The aim of this paper is to present the way the speech and language specialists developed their competences during the ERASMUS + project „LINKS−Logopedists Interact for New Knowledge and Skills”. In the first part of the article, there is a short presentation of the Erasmus + program, the participants and the aim of the project. In the second part of the article there is a short description of the main activities of the project and the conclusions. The short description of the course training activities is provided
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We study first language acquisition of Croatian morphonotactic vs. phonotactic word–initial consonant clusters. Morphonotactic clusters cross a morpheme boundary, such as /sl/ in s+ložiti ‘ to arrange’, whereas phonotactic clusters occur within a morpheme, as in slad+o+led ‘ice–cream’. With a new method we show that, similarly to equally morphology–rich Polish and Lithuanian, the three investigated Croatian children acquire morphonotactic clusters earlier than homophonous phonotactic clusters. We also study preferences of double and triple word–initial consonant clusters via the concept of Net Auditory Distance (NAD), never before used for Croatian, with partially unexpected results. When dealing for the first time in studies of (mor)phonotactic development with the rise of cluster complexity, we will show that morphonotactics creates new complexity. Since children do not learn directly the target language, as represented in grammars, dictionaries and electronic corpora of written or oral adult language, we compare the development of child speech (CS) systematically with the children’s language input, i.e. child–directed speech (CDS) of their caretakers. In this way, we can achieve a higher degree of ecological validity than with formal transversal tests. The three longitudinal corpora of spontaneous interaction between a child and a caretaker (Croatian Corpus of Child Language, Kovačević 2002) have been recorded, transcribed and coded according to the methodologies of the international project CHILDES and the Crosslinguistic Project on Pre– and Protomorphology in Language Acquisition headed by the second author. The results are compared with those of the acquisition of morphonotactic vs. phonotactic clusters by Polish children. Diverging results are due to structural differences between these two Slavic languages.
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The acquisition of negation in the second language has been investigated in numerous studies (Cancino et al., 1975; Meisel, 1997;Fuentes, 2008), however, there are no systematic studies of the acquisition of the English negation by speakers of the Croatian language. The aim of this paper is to gain a better insight into the types and frequency of errors in a relatively free production of negation in English as a second language. The analysis is based on the hypotheses that errors in sentences where the so called dummy do has to be inserted in the negative sentence, omissions of auxiliary verbs, and double marking errors are expected. The analysis is based on a questionnaire consisting of one task of positive to negative sentence transformations. The answers were grouped according to the error type. Errors classified as “other” were the most frequent (37 %), followed by double marking and congruency errors (14 %), omissions (12 %), and additions (9 %). The results corroborate the frequency hypothesis of errors in sentences where the so called dummy do had to be inserted in the negative sentence, which may be attributed to negative interference from Croatian as the first language.
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The evolution from Latin to Romance languages has generated an abundance of historical linguistics studies that have described, sometimes very thoroughly, the emergence of new forms and the transformations for more than two millennia. But the causes of these innovations are not always obvious. This article comes to complete the well-known evolution from the Latin noun ‘homo’ to the indefinite pronoun ‘on’ of the French language. Initially, the word assumed the function of an impersonal subject, but during the 20th century, developed a new value for the first personal plural, therefore the concepts of ‘and ‘anticipation’ grant a better understanding and explanation.
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Vocabulary acquisition in terms of lexical knowledge is one of the basic elements of second language acquisition. Interesting reading studies presented in the classroom positively affects the learners’ acquisition of new words. In this context, this study aims to demonstrate that Turkish EFL learners have a positive effect on the vocabulary knowledge by the help of topic interest-based reading passages. This study carried out experimentally in the context of pre-test and post-test was conducted with 52 Turkish EFL learners who were divided into two groups as experimental and control. While the experimental group was exposed to reading components for 12 weeks, the control group was trained with traditional reading passages. According to the results, vocabulary knowledge of the students exposed to topic interest-based reading passages increased significantly when they were compared to the control group. Consequently, interesting reading activities increase vocabulary knowledge of the students incidentally.
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Turkish is taught as a foreign language both in Turkology departments and private language centers in many countries abroad. As a matter of fact, Iran is one of the countries, where Turkish is regarded as a foreign language by a wide target audience. However, the fact that there have always been effective and deep-rooted historical relations between the two countries and also an overlap in the soft power of the two countries’ geographical hinterlands makes Iran different from other countries in the context of teaching Turkish as a foreign language. In this study, it is aimed to draw the framework of Turkish teaching policy as a foreign language, which can be applied in the Islamic Republic of Iran, one of the countries in which Turkish is seen as a foreign language. The data in the study, which is based on a qualitative research, have been obtained via document analyses and also through the researcher’s observations in the field. In addition, the study is structured with data which might provide a realistic and holistic presentation of Turkish teaching policy to foreigners in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In this respect, the answer to the question, “How should the policy of teaching Turkish to foreigners be developed in the Islamic Republic of Iran?” was tried to be answered, and in the conclusion part of the study, some suggestions were offered as a sort of an action plan for foreign language teaching policy.
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Stephen Krashen has been one of the prominent figures in the field of second language acquisition. His Input Hypothesis and Monitor Model can be considered as his most noteworthy work. Specifically, his principal proposition that emphasizes the importance of comprehensible input for language acquisition sheds light on linguistic competence. Krashen claimed that languages could be easily acquired as long as the acquirer is provided with natural bits of language. Despite the high acclaim they have received, Krashen’s ideas have also been harshly criticized by certain linguists as his claims failed to clarify certain issues related to the second language acquisition. In this respect, the authors of this paper critically review his Input Hypothesis and Monitor Model focusing on the insufficiency of the input for language acquisition, absence of an operational definition of comprehensible input, and misleading use of the term acquisition. In addition, the authors also adopt a satirical language to pinpoint the aforementioned insufficiencies and misleading components, while supporting their claims with recent empirical studies that were rarely conducted in the field.
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Considerable research on language anxiety has accumulated over the last 30 years indicating negative correlations between language anxiety and target language performance and overall success achieved in the target language. However, very little research has been conducted on teacher language anxiety. This study investigates the causes and effects of language anxiety experienced by anxious non-native student teachers. The findings indicate the participants experience feelings of anxiety due to their fear of negative evaluation and concern over errors. Language anxiety also appears to have a number of negative impacts on foreign language instruction which have not been investigated before such as teachers’ avoiding speaking the target language and teachers’ reluctance to use classroom activities that require spontaneous and active target language use. Recommendations for helping student teachers overcome potential feelings of foreign language anxiety are made as well as recommendations for researchers interested in conducting future studies on teacher foreign language anxiety.
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In a study, the distinguishing professor Hiver (2015) introduced a new concept to the education field called “teacher immunity”, proposing that it emerges through the broad experiences of coping with the uncertainties and potential problems of teaching occupation which functions as an indispensable armor to survive as a teacher. As a matter of fact, many foreign language (FL) learners are struggling to continue their learning journey despite the numerous damaging factors which can have an effect upon their desire to learn. Some of these students have the ability to cross over these hurdles via their own self-motivation and self-organizing strategies, while others find themselves inadequate to deal with such problems possibly because they are unaware of their sense of self and identity. The other area which is open to a question is that whether this concept can raise students’ consciousness and make the necessary transformative change on their motivation so that it redevelops more productively to carry on their language learning journey despite its adversity. To do this, a data-driven case study was designed to investigate whether there is the emergence of any stages which can be termed as “student immunity” (the coping strategies students acquire in time) through the lens of CT and to reveal those factors which constitute student immunity. The qualitative interview data suggested that an emergent outcome, student immunity, was developed in return for disturbances which were confronted by the subject student in her/his school-life experience. The new emergent outcome became visible to function as a defense system to be able to sustain on an ongoing basis to deal with relatively ongoing academic difficulty.
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Previous studies provided evidence on the benefits of early foreign language education; however, U.S. schools typically offer foreign language classes after middle school or during high school. In addition, there are no teacher training programs specifically designed for early foreign language teaching, let alone for “inclusive early foreign language programs.” Therefore, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the classroom experiences of voluntary pre-service French teachers teaching French in an Early Foreign Language Exploratory (FLEX) Program at a charter school. This school provides education for students from pre-kindergarten through grade five and observes full inclusion of students with special needs in one of the Southern states of the United States. Findings from the lived experiences of voluntary French teachers may shed light in establishing foreign language teacher training programs that offer inclusive education or in offering courses on methods in teaching foreign languages to students with special needs.
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This study unearths the academic writing challenges of undergraduate students at School of Foreign Languages at a state university in Turkey from the perspective of English as a foreign (EFL henceforth) language instructors. Besides, it focuses on these challenges in terms of the variety and integrity. The article also sheds light on the implications of these challenges for students’ academic development and it offers solutions to address these challenges. This is a qualitative study. Thematic analysis was conducted to analyse the data. The participants were selected through purposeful sampling method and data were collected via observations, semi-structured interview questions and students’ documents such as exam papers and writing assignments. The results revealed that writing instructors face a number of challenges ranging from the mechanics of the lesson to students’ individual perceptions. Additionally, the study offers some implications such as support from other skills and the need for encouragement of learners to write successfully for both teachers and curriculum designers.
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The article deals with the problem of some taboo topics that are present in Slovenian society and should be understood by foreigners who wish to participate in the Slovenian culture. By analyzing six modern textbooks of Slovene as a foreign language (levels A1 to B1), considering such topics as intimate body parts, relationships, death or illnesses, the author seeks for problematic content, describes the way the textbooks deal with it and lists out vocabulary that can be acquired. The author concludes that the majority of analyzed textbooks avoid taboo topics.
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Ten 3- to 5-year old children (5M, 5F) who were diagnosed as children with articulatory phonological disorders (CWAPD) and attending a therapy program were recruited to participate in a ‘repeat-after-her’ experiment. They were asked to produce a total of 85 real Mandarin words, including 28 monophthongs, 41 diphthongs, and 16 triphthongs. The results indicated that CWAPD have no problem producing monophthongs. However, attempts to articulate diphthongs and triphthongs induced more errors. CWAPD showed more errors when producing words with 1st sonorant diphthongs than words with 2nd sonorant diphthongs—this is because the least sonorant segment in the last position is prone to distortion. Similar phenomena were found in other triphthongs, except with /iai/ and /iou/, which did not see deviant pronunciation. Comparing our study to the information provided by two therapists showed that the participating CWAPD encountered difficulties in producing multi-vowel syllables, where the position and sonorant matters. In addition, our results also reveal a similar vowel acquisition order among CWAPD as among normal children.
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The article refers to the phenomenon of functional illiteracy in the context of reading comprehension in a first and second language (L1, L2). Possible causes for functional illiteracy were described. An attempt was made to discuss whether reading difficulties in the L1 might be directly linked to functional illiteracy and transferred to reading ability in the L2 and thereby to the learning of this language. As it was noticed that there is an apparent lack of research showing correlations between language comprehension while reading in the L1 or L2 and functional illiteracy, the issue needs an empirical exploration. In spite of this, current reading ability tests might be, to a certain extent helpful to identify some symptoms of functional illiteracy.
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The article concerns the issues of speech therapy. The tasks of a speech therapists as a specialist in early support of child development are described, considering especially the practical aspect. The speech therapist, being a specialist in speech development, preventing speech disorders and their elimination, discusses important factors that have an impact on the child development, in particular communication abilities. The speech therapist also points out the significance of the cooperation with the parents. The article includes a lot of valuable information for the parents in terms of child development. It explains the meaning of preventing speech disorders. The article stresses the conviction that doctors (paediatricians, laryngologists, phoniatrists, dentists, orthodontists, physiotherapists and the like) and other people working with children (e.g. teachers) need to have background knowledge of speech therapy.
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Ultimate attainment in foreign-language sound learning is addressed via vowel production accuracy in English spoken by advanced Czech EFL learners. English FLEECE–KIT, DRESS–TRAP, and GOOSE–FOOT contrasts are examined in terms of length, height, and backness. Our data show that, while being constrained by phonemic category assimilation (new vowel height distinctions are not created), the learners’ interlanguage combines phonological parsimony (reusing L1 length feature to contrast L2 vowels) with phonetic flexibility (within-category shifts reflecting L1–L2 phonetic dissimilarity). Although achieving nativelike phonological competence may not be possible learners who acquire L2 in the prevailingly L1 environment, the Czech learners’ implementations of English vowels revealed their ability to adjust for phonetic detail of L2 sounds.
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Phonetic convergence is the process by which a speaker adapts his/her speech to sound more similar to his/her interlocutor. While most studies analysing this process have been conducted amongst speakers sharing the same language or variety, this experiment focuses on imitation between non-native and native speakers in a repetition task. The data is a fragment from the ANGLISH corpus designed by Anne Tortel (Tortel, 2008). 40 French speakers (10 male intermediate, 10 male advanced, 10 female intermediate and 10 female advanced learners) were asked to repeat a set of 20 sentences produced by British native speakers. Segmental (vowel quality), suprasegmental (vowel duration) and voice quality were analysed. Level of proficiency, gender and model talker were taken as independent variables. Level appeared not to be a relevant parameter due to a high amount of inter-individual variability amongst groups. Somewhat contradictory results were observed for vowel duration and F1-F2 distance for male learners converged more than female learners. Our hypothesis that low vowels display a higher degree of imitation, and especially within the F1 dimension (Babel, 2012), was partially validated. Convergence in vowel duration in order to sound more native-like was also observed (Zając, 2013). Regarding the analysis of voice quality, and more particularly of creaky voice, observations suggest that some advanced female learners creaked more than the native speakers and more in the reading task, which indicate, both linguistic idiosyncrasy and accommodation towards the native speakers. Low vowels seem also to be more likely to be produced with a creaky voice, especially at the end of prosodic constituents.
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This paper investigates the evaluation of the English sounds /θ/ and /ð/ as produced by European non-native speakers. Using the data from a larger web survey, we compared the error judgements by different native and non-native users of English. This was done to establish whether there is any normative convergence among European non-native speakers, or if this was counteracted by other patterns, such as the presence or absence of these sounds in their L1s. Our analysis shows that while European non-native judges do not differ consistently from native-speakers in their judgements, there are also subtle differences between different groups of non-native speakers, implying that we should be careful not to generalise across groups about non-native attitudes to these sounds.
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The aim of the considerations is to present the usefulness of the construct of “parenting competence” according to the understanding of Teti and Huang (2004) in research on the role of parenting influence in child development. Through a critical analysis of definitions of such concepts as “parental attitude” or “parenting style,” the construct of parenting competence (PC) will be shown as allowing for a more precise, and at the same time, coherent and comprehensive characteristics of the most important components of parenting. PC will be presented as a construct which contains three important elements of parenting, namely: parental warmth, control and quality of communication. By presenting the potential usefulness of this construct, we will show that PC can be treated as a kind of social competence possessed by the parent. PC makes it possible to analyze parenting in the context of parent-child interaction, and at the same time takes into account the variability of parenting, which is culturally conditioned and, in this context, is strongly related to the developmental period, i.e., the child’s age.
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