Sample records for explicit grammar instruction

  1. Direct versus Indirect Explicit Methods of Enhancing EFL Students' English Grammatical Competence: A Concept Checking-Based Consciousness-Raising Tasks Model

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dang, Trang Thi Doan; Nguyen, Huong Thu

    2013-01-01

    Two approaches to grammar instruction are often discussed in the ESL literature: direct explicit grammar instruction (DEGI) (deduction) and indirect explicit grammar instruction (IEGI) (induction). This study aims to explore the effects of indirect explicit grammar instruction on EFL learners' mastery of English tenses. Ninety-four…

  2. What Should Be Explicit in Explicit Grammar Instruction?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nagai, Noriko; Ayano, Seiki; Okada, Keiko; Nakanishi, Takayuki

    2015-01-01

    This article proposes an approach to explicit grammar instruction that seeks to develop metalinguistic knowledge of the L2 and raise L2 learners' awareness of their L1, which is crucial for the success of second language acquisition (Ellis 1997, 2002). If explicit instruction is more effective than implicit instruction (Norris and Ortega 2000),…

  3. Learning to Sing to a Different Tune: Identifying Means to Enrich Grammar Curricula through Diversifying Explicit Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schenck, Andrew D.

    2014-01-01

    Characteristics of a grammatical feature, type of instruction, and proficiency level of the learner all contribute to the effectiveness of various types of explicit grammar curricula. Modern curricular designs and explicit pedagogical techniques must move beyond traditional one-size-fits-all strategies. This can be accomplished in two steps.…

  4. The Effect of Explicit Instruction for Story Grammar Code Strategy on Third Graders' Reading Comprehension

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    De Nigris, Rosemarie Previti

    2017-01-01

    The hypothesis of the study was explicit gradual release of responsibility comprehension instruction (GRR) (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983; Fisher & Frey, 2008) with the researcher-created Story Grammar Code (SGC) strategy would significantly increase third graders' comprehension of narrative fiction and nonfiction text. SGC comprehension…

  5. Foreign-Language Grammar Instruction via the Mother Tongue

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Paradowski, Michal B.

    2007-01-01

    The chapter reports the results of a controlled experiment which suggest that foreign-language grammar instruction that forges explicit connections with the grammar of the students' mother tongue aids learning, at least as far as students' application of discrete-point grammar rules is concerned. (Contains 2 figures and 3 notes.) [This document…

  6. A Case for Explicit Grammar Instruction in English as Second/Foreign Language Classrooms

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Williams, Kent

    2013-01-01

    This paper will provide a review of research--regarding explicit grammar instruction--that groups recent studies into three main categories and then sub-categorizes these studies under key terms in second language acquisition (SLA) research. The overall purpose of this paper is to argue that in light of these issues, recent studies have shown that…

  7. Literary Texts and Grammar Instruction: Revisiting the Inductive Presentation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Paesani, Kate

    2005-01-01

    This article outlines an approach to explicit grammar instruction that uses literary texts as comprehensible, meaning-bearing input. In this approach, which employs strategies from the teaching of grammar and the teaching of reading, literary texts serve as the basis of the inductive presentation of new grammatical forms and as a springboard for…

  8. Effect of Instruction in Story Grammar on the Narrative Writing of EFL Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    El-Koumy, Abdel Salam A.

    A study investigated the effects of explicit versus implicit instruction in story grammar on the narrative writing skills of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) students at the university level. Subjects were 83 freshmen enrolled in English at the Faculty of Education at Suez Canal University (Egypt). The subjects were randomly assigned to…

  9. The role of feedback in implicit and explicit artificial grammar learning: a comparison between dyslexic and non-dyslexic adults.

    PubMed

    Schiff, Rachel; Sasson, Ayelet; Star, Galit; Kahta, Shani

    2017-10-01

    The importance of feedback for learning has been firmly established over the past few decades. The question of whether feedback plays a significant role in the statistical learning abilities of adults with dyslexia, however, is currently unresolved. Here, we examined the role of feedback in grammaticality judgment, type of structural knowledge, and confidence rating in both typically developed and dyslexic adults. We implemented two artificial grammar learning experiments: implicit and explicit. The second experiment was directly analogous to the first experiment in all respects except training format: the standard memorization instruction was replaced with an explicit rule-search instruction. Each experiment was conducted with and without performance feedback. While both groups showed significantly improved learning in the feedback-based explicit artificial grammar learning task, only the typically developed adults demonstrated higher levels of conscious structural knowledge. The present study demonstrates that the basis for the grammaticality judgment of adults with dyslexia differs from that of typically developed adults, regardless of increase in the level of explicitness.

  10. Comparing the Effectiveness of Processing Instruction and Production-Based Instruction on L2 Grammar Learning: The Role of Explicit Information

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Soruç, Adem; Qin, Jingjing; Kim, YouJin

    2017-01-01

    This article reports on a study that investigated whether processing instruction(PI) or production-based instruction (PBI) is more effective for the teaching of regular past simple verb forms in English. In addition, this study examined whether explicit grammatical information (EI) mediates the effectiveness of PI or PBI. A total of 194 Turkish…

  11. Explicit Instruction, Bilingualism, and the Older Adult Learner

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cox, Jessica G.

    2017-01-01

    Little is known about older adult language learners and effects of aging on L2 learning. This study investigated learning in older age through interactions of learner-internal and -external variables; specifically, late-learned L2 (bilingualism) and provision of grammar explanation (explicit instruction, EI). Forty-three older adults (age 60+) who…

  12. Story Grammar Instruction with Third and Fifth Grade Students with Learning Disabilities and Other Struggling Readers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alves, Kat D.; Kennedy, Michael J.; Brown, Tiara S.; Solis, Michael

    2015-01-01

    "Reading comprehension" is difficult for many students with disabilities, including those with specific learning disabilities. However these students can be explicitly taught strategies to improve their comprehension abilities. One such strategy is teaching students story grammar in order to provide them with a framework for…

  13. The Teaching of Grammar: The Relationship of Structure to Communication. ACTFL Master Lecture Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Higgs, Theodore V.

    Teaching grammar for its own sake is largely counterproductive when the goal of instruction is to have students communicate spontaneously, fluently, and accurately in the target language. The ideal foreign language program is one providing the best possible environment for language acquisition to take place. Explicit teaching about the language…

  14. A Novel Format for Teaching Spanish Grammar: Lessons from the Lecture Hall

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zyzik, Eve

    2008-01-01

    This article describes a third-year Spanish grammar course that is taught in lecture/discussion format. The course, which enrolls over 150 students each semester, provides explicit instruction during a weekly lecture and opportunities for students to engage in meaningful output and interaction during small group discussion sessions. The goal is to…

  15. Concept-Based Approach to Second Language Teaching and Learning: Cognitive Lingusitics-Inspired Instruction of English Phrasal Verbs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lee, Hyewon

    2012-01-01

    In recent years, L2 researchers from the sociocultural and cognitive linguistic perspectives have emphasized the importance of properly organized explicit and in-depth grammar instruction for second or foreign language learning. Such instruction is believed to lead learners to systematic understanding of the target features faster and more…

  16. How Explicit and Implicit Test Instructions in an Implicit Learning Task Affect Performance

    PubMed Central

    Witt, Arnaud; Puspitawati, Ira; Vinter, Annie

    2013-01-01

    Typically developing children aged 5 to 8 years were exposed to artificial grammar learning. Following an implicit exposure phase, half of the participants received neutral instructions at test while the other half received instructions making a direct, explicit reference to the training phase. We first aimed to assess whether implicit learning operated in the two test conditions. We then evaluated the differential impact of age on learning performances as a function of test instructions. The results showed that performance did not vary as a function of age in the implicit instructions condition, while age effects emerged when explicit instructions were employed at test. However, performance was affected differently by age and the instructions given at test, depending on whether the implicit learning of short or long units was assessed. These results suggest that the claim that the implicit learning process is independent of age needs to be revised. PMID:23326409

  17. Implicit and explicit second language training recruit common neural mechanisms for syntactic processing.

    PubMed

    Batterink, Laura; Neville, Helen

    2013-06-01

    In contrast to native language acquisition, adult second-language (L2) acquisition occurs under highly variable learning conditions. Although most adults acquire their L2 at least partially through explicit instruction, as in a classroom setting, many others acquire their L2 primarily through implicit exposure, as is typical of an immersion environment. Whether these differences in acquisition environment play a role in determining the neural mechanisms that are ultimately recruited to process L2 grammar has not been well characterized. This study investigated this issue by comparing the ERP response to novel L2 syntactic rules acquired under conditions of implicit exposure and explicit instruction, using a novel laboratory language-learning paradigm. Native speakers tested on these stimuli showed a biphasic response to syntactic violations, consisting of an earlier negativity followed by a later P600 effect. After merely an hour of training, both implicitly and explicitly trained learners who were capable of detecting grammatical violations also elicited P600 effects. In contrast, learners who were unable to discriminate between grammatically correct and incorrect sentences did not show significant P600 effects. The magnitude of the P600 effect was found to correlate with learners' behavioral proficiency. Behavioral measures revealed that successful learners from both the implicit and explicit groups gained explicit, verbalizable knowledge about the L2 grammar rules. Taken together, these results indicate that late, controlled mechanisms indexed by the P600 play a crucial role in processing a late-learned L2 grammar, regardless of training condition. These findings underscore the remarkable plasticity of later, attention-dependent processes and their importance in lifelong learning.

  18. The Effectiveness of Processing Instruction in L2 Grammar Acquisition: A Narrative Review

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dekeyser, Robert; Botana, Goretti Prieto

    2015-01-01

    The past two decades have seen ample debate about processing instruction (PI) and its various components. In this article, we first describe what PI consists of and then address three questions: about the role of explicit information (EI) in PI, the difference between PI and teaching that incorporates production-based (PB) practice, and various…

  19. Perceived Learning Difficulty and Actual Performance: Explicit and Implicit Knowledge of L2 English Grammar Points among Instructed Adult Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Silva, Luis Humberto Rodríguez; Roehr-Brackin, Karen

    2016-01-01

    This article draws on an approach that conceptualizes L2 learning difficulty in terms of implicit and explicit knowledge. In a study with first language Mexican Spanish university-level learners (n = 30), their teachers (n = 11), and applied linguistics experts (n = 3), we investigated the relationship between (a) these groups' difficulty…

  20. "Flipping" Lessons in a Multi-Section Spanish Course: Implications for Assigning Explicit Grammar Instruction Outside of the Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moranski, Kara; Kim, Frederic

    2016-01-01

    Flipped or inverted classroom (IC) models are promising for foreign language instruction in that they appear to promote well-regarded practices that bridge both sociocultural and cognitive theoretical frameworks, such as allowing for higher degrees of learner agency and facilitating deeper levels of processing. To date, the majority of work on IC…

  1. Multiple Metaphors: Teaching Tense and Aspect to English-Speakers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cody, Karen

    2000-01-01

    This paper proposes a synthesis of instructional methods from both traditional/explicit grammar and learner-centered/constructivist camps that also incorporates many types of metaphors (abstract, visual, and kinesthetic) in order to lead learners from declarative to proceduralized to automatized knowledge. This integrative, synthetic approach…

  2. Concurrence of rule- and similarity-based mechanisms in artificial grammar learning.

    PubMed

    Opitz, Bertram; Hofmann, Juliane

    2015-03-01

    A current theoretical debate regards whether rule-based or similarity-based learning prevails during artificial grammar learning (AGL). Although the majority of findings are consistent with a similarity-based account of AGL it has been argued that these results were obtained only after limited exposure to study exemplars, and performance on subsequent grammaticality judgment tests has often been barely above chance level. In three experiments the conditions were investigated under which rule- and similarity-based learning could be applied. Participants were exposed to exemplars of an artificial grammar under different (implicit and explicit) learning instructions. The analysis of receiver operating characteristics (ROC) during a final grammaticality judgment test revealed that explicit but not implicit learning led to rule knowledge. It also demonstrated that this knowledge base is built up gradually while similarity knowledge governed the initial state of learning. Together these results indicate that rule- and similarity-based mechanisms concur during AGL. Moreover, it could be speculated that two different rule processes might operate in parallel; bottom-up learning via gradual rule extraction and top-down learning via rule testing. Crucially, the latter is facilitated by performance feedback that encourages explicit hypothesis testing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Presentation-Practice-Production and Task-Based Learning in the Light of Second Language Learning Theories.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ritchie, Graeme

    2003-01-01

    Features of presentation-practice-production (PPP) and task-based learning (TBL) models for language teaching are discussed with reference to language learning theories. Pre-selection of target structures, use of controlled repetition, and explicit grammar instruction in a PPP lesson are given. Suggests TBL approaches afford greater learning…

  4. Improving Dean's Writing: Or, What Shall We Tell the Children?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Frater, Graham

    2004-01-01

    In this paper Graham Frater finds early signs of a revival of explicit instruction in English grammar to pupils of compulsory school age in England; this is accompanied by an expectation that such teaching might play an important part in closing the "writing gap." He suggests that, strengthened by the National Literacy Strategy, this early…

  5. Checking the Grammar Checker: Integrating Grammar Instruction with Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McAlexander, Patricia J.

    2000-01-01

    Notes Rei Noguchi's recommendation of integrating grammar instruction with writing instruction and teaching only the most vital terms and the most frequently made errors. Presents a project that provides a review of the grammar lessons, applies many grammar rules specifically to the students' writing, and teaches students the effective use of the…

  6. Effects of grammar instruction and fluency training on the learning of the and a by native speakers of japanese

    PubMed Central

    Shimamune, Satoru; Jitsumori, Masako

    1999-01-01

    In a computer-assisted sentence completion task, the effects of grammar instruction and fluency training on learning the use of the definite and indefinite articles of English were examined. Forty-eight native Japanese-speaking students were assigned to four groups: with grammar/accuracy (G/A), without grammar/accuracy (N/A), with grammar/fluency (G/F), and without grammar/fluency (N/F). In the G/A and N/A groups, training continued until performance reached 100% accuracy (accuracy criterion). In the G/F and N/F groups, training continued until 100% accuracy was reached and the correct responses were made at a high speed (fluency criterion). Grammar instruction was given to participants in the G/A and G/F groups but not to those in the N/A and N/F groups. Generalization to new sentences was tested immediately after reaching the required criterion. High levels of generalization occurred, regardless of the type of mastery criterion and whether the grammar instruction was given. Retention tests were conducted 4, 6, and 8 weeks after training. Fluency training effectively improved retention of the performance attained without the grammar instruction. This effect was diminished when grammar instruction was given during training. Learning grammatical rules was not necessary for the generalized use of appropriate definite and indefinite articles or for the maintenance of the performance attained through fluency training. PMID:22477154

  7. Effect of X-Word Grammar and Traditional Grammar Instruction on Grammatical Accuracy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Livingston, Sue; Toce, Andi; Casey, Toce; Montoya, Fernando; Hart, Bonny R.; O'Flaherty, Carmela

    2018-01-01

    This study first briefly describes an instructional approach to teaching grammar known as X-Word Grammar and then compares its effectiveness in assisting students in achieving grammatical accuracy with traditionally taught grammar. Two groups of L2 pre-college students were taught using curricula and practice procedures in two different grammar…

  8. The Effect of Target Language and Code-Switching on the Grammatical Performance and Perceptions of Elementary-Level College French Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Viakinnou-Brinson, Lucie; Herron, Carol; Cole, Steven P.; Haight, Carrie

    2012-01-01

    Grammar instruction is at the center of the target language (TL) and code-switching debate. Discussion revolves around whether grammar should be taught in the TL or using the TL and the native language (L1). This study investigated the effects of French-only grammar instruction and French/English grammar instruction on elementary-level students'…

  9. Teaching Grammar: What Really Works

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Benjamin, Amy; Berger, Joan

    2010-01-01

    In this book, the authors share procedures for teaching grammar effectively and dynamically, in ways that appeal to students and teachers alike. Ideal for teachers just beginning their work in grammar instruction, this book includes day-by-day units and reproducibles to help them embed grammar lessons into writing instruction. Using visuals,…

  10. Effect of Direct Grammar Instruction on Student Writing Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robinson, Lisa; Feng, Jay

    2016-01-01

    Grammar Instruction has an important role to play in helping students to speak and write more effectively. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of direct grammar instruction on the quality of student's writing skills. The participants in this study included 18 fifth grade students and two fifth grade teachers. Based on the results…

  11. Foreign-grammar acquisition while watching subtitled television programmes.

    PubMed

    Van Lommel, Sven; Laenen, Annouschka; d'Ydewalle, Géry

    2006-06-01

    Past research has shown that watching a subtitled foreign movie (i.e. foreign language in the soundtrack and native language in the subtitles) leads to considerable foreign-language vocabulary acquisition; however, acquisition of the grammatical rules has failed to emerge. The aim of this study was to obtain evidence for the acquisition of grammatical rules in watching subtitled foreign movies. Given an informal context, younger children were predicted to outperform older children in acquiring a foreign language; however, older children will take more advantage of explicit instruction compared with younger children. In Experiment 1, 62 sixth-graders from a primary school and 47 sixth-graders from a secondary school volunteered to participate. The participants in Experiment 2 were 94 sixth-graders from primary schools and 84 sixth-graders from secondary schools. The two experiments manipulated the instructions (incidental- vs. intentional-language learning). Moreover, before the experiments began, some participants explicitly received some of the foreign grammatical rules (presented rules), while the movie contained cases of presented rules as well as cases of rules which had to be inferred (not-presented rules). Rule acquisition through the movie only was not obtained; there was a strong effect of advance rule presentation but only on the items of presented rules, particularly among the older participants. Contrary to vocabulary, grammar may be too complicated to acquire from a rather short movie presentation.

  12. "Something for Linguists": On-The-Fly Grammar Instruction in a Dutch as Foreign Language Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moore, Leslie C.; Park, Seo Hyun

    2014-01-01

    This article examines grammar instruction produced on the fly by a teacher in response to students' questions in a Dutch as foreign language classroom. Such sequences merit attention because they present teachers with the opportunity and the challenge to provide unplanned instruction on an aspect of grammar to which a student has shown herself to…

  13. The Histories and Mysteries of Grammar Instruction: Supporting Elementary Teachers in the Time of the Common Core

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gartland, Lauren B.; Smolkin, Laura B.

    2016-01-01

    The reemergence of grammar instruction in the Common Core State Standards has likely left teachers confused. On the one hand, they have been told repeatedly that grammar instruction does not improve student outcomes, and can, in fact, be "harmful" to students. However, on the other hand, many Anglophone countries, including the United…

  14. Paperback Grammar for Handbook Haters.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lambert, Dorothy

    1967-01-01

    Students will respond better to grammar instruction if the traditional heavy handbooks are replaced with light-weight paperbacks, each full of practical suggestions and clear examples. Several inexpensive paperbacks are available for instruction in grammar and usage, spelling, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing. Unlike the conventional…

  15. Computer-Based Grammar Instruction in an EFL Context: Improving the Effectiveness of Teaching Adverbial Clauses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kiliçkaya, Ferit

    2015-01-01

    This study aims to find out whether there are any statistically significant differences in participants' achievements on three different types of instruction: computer-based instruction, teacher-driven instruction, and teacher-driven grammar supported by computer-based instruction. Each type of instruction follows the deductive approach. The…

  16. Pourquoi les exercices de grammaire? (Why Grammar Exercises?)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bastuji, Jacqueline

    1977-01-01

    Recent theories and experiementation running the gamut from the absolute necessity of grammar to its uselessness in teaching a language form the basis of this article. Topics covered are: a typology of the grammar exercise; explicit grammar and linguistic competence; grammar exercises responding to real needs. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

  17. Grammar! A Conference Report.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    King, Lid, Ed.; Boaks, Peter, Ed.

    Papers from a conference on the teaching of grammar, particularly in second language instruction, include: "Grammar: Acquisition and Use" (Richard Johnstone); "Grammar and Communication" (Brian Page); "Linguistic Progression and Increasing Independence" (Bernardette Holmes); "La grammaire? C'est du bricolage!" ("Grammar? That's Hardware!") (Barry…

  18. The Journalism Writing Course: Evaluation of Hybrid versus Online Grammar Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moore, Jensen; Jones, Khristen

    2015-01-01

    This study examined introductory journalism writing courses and compared hybrid (part online/part classroom) versus online grammar instruction. The hybrid structure allowed for grammar topics to be taught online, with a pretest following, and then reviewing missed/difficult pretest concepts in class prior to a posttest. The quasi-experimental…

  19. The Role of Input and Output Tasks in Grammar Instruction: Theoretical, Empirical and Pedagogical Considerations

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Benati, Alessandro

    2017-01-01

    In this paper, a review of the role of input, output and instruction in second language acquisition is provided. Several pedagogical interventions in grammar instruction (e.g., processing instruction, input enhancement, structured output and collaborative output tasks) are presented and their effectiveness reviewed. A final and overall evaluation…

  20. Overcoming the Grammar Deficit: The Role of Information Technology in Teaching German Grammar to Undergraduates.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hall, Christopher

    1998-01-01

    Examines how application of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and information technology can be used to overcome "grammar deficit" seen in many British undergraduate German students. A combination of explicit, implicit, and exploratory grammar teaching approaches uses diverse resources, including word processing packages,…

  1. Impact of Consciousness-Raising Activities on Young English Language Learners' Grammar Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fatemipour, Hamidreza; Hemmati, Shiva

    2015-01-01

    Grammar Consciousness-Raising (GCR) is an approach to teaching of grammar which learners instead of being taught the given rules, experience language data. The data challenge them to rethink, restructure their existing mental grammar and construct an explicit rule to describe the grammatical feature which the data illustrate (Ellis, 2002). And…

  2. The Relationship between Teachers' Beliefs of Grammar Instruction and Classroom Practices in the Saudi Context

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alghanmi, Bayan; Shukri, Nadia

    2016-01-01

    Teacher cognition (Borg, 2015) of grammar instruction is a relatively new phenomenon that has yet to be explored in the Saudi context. While many studies have focused on the teaching of grammar in general (Ellis, 2006; Corzo, 2013; Braine, 2014), further research needs to be done - particularly when it comes to understanding teachers' beliefs of…

  3. Grammar and Grammaring: Toward Modes for English Grammar Teaching in China

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nan, Chengyu

    2015-01-01

    The value of grammar instruction in foreign language learning and teaching has been a focus of debate for quite some time, which has resulted in different views on grammar and grammar teaching as well as different teaching approaches based on different perspectives or in different language learning contexts. To explore some modes for grammar…

  4. Unpacking the Discrepancy between Learner and Teacher Beliefs: What Should Be the Role of Grammar in Language Classes?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hos, Rabia; Kekec, Mustafa

    2015-01-01

    Learner and teacher beliefs play an important role in second language (L2) learning. Furthermore, the role of grammar instruction and error correction in the L2 classroom is a topic that is still debated in the literature. This study explored the beliefs of EFL learners and teachers regarding the controversial role of grammar instruction and error…

  5. A Design Study of a Multimedia Instructional Grammar Program with Embedded Tracking

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Koehler, Natalya A.; Thompson, Ann D.; Phye, Gary D.

    2011-01-01

    This is a design study meant to demonstrate the feasibility of integrating three rather different theoretical perspectives for future efforts in multimedia instructional design. A multimedia instructional grammar program contextualized within the teaching of English as a Second Language (ESL) was developed and evaluated. The program design was…

  6. Non-Native English Teachers' Beliefs on Grammar Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Önalan, Okan

    2018-01-01

    Research on teacher cognition, which mainly focuses on identifying what teachers think, know and believe, is essential to understanding teachers' cognitive framework as it relates to the instructional choices they make. The aim of this study is to find out the beliefs of non-native speaker teachers of English on grammar instruction and to explain…

  7. Measuring strategic control in artificial grammar learning.

    PubMed

    Norman, Elisabeth; Price, Mark C; Jones, Emma

    2011-12-01

    In response to concerns with existing procedures for measuring strategic control over implicit knowledge in artificial grammar learning (AGL), we introduce a more stringent measurement procedure. After two separate training blocks which each consisted of letter strings derived from a different grammar, participants either judged the grammaticality of novel letter strings with respect to only one of these two grammars (pure-block condition), or had the target grammar varying randomly from trial to trial (novel mixed-block condition) which required a higher degree of conscious flexible control. Random variation in the colour and font of letters was introduced to disguise the nature of the rule and reduce explicit learning. Strategic control was observed both in the pure-block and mixed-block conditions, and even among participants who did not realise the rule was based on letter identity. This indicated detailed strategic control in the absence of explicit learning. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Making Grammar Explicit in the Classroom: An Illustration Using the Spanish Subjunctive.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kilroe, Patricia

    1988-01-01

    It is proposed that explicit explanations of grammar concepts in the first language can be useful in teaching the related structures in a second language. The example used is that of the subjunctive mood, taught first in English and then in Spanish. Specific procedures for presenting the concept in English are outlined, including a set of…

  9. A Student-Designed Grammar Quiz on the Web: A Constructive Mode of Grammar Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fukushima, Tatsuya

    2006-01-01

    The World Wide Web has frequently been incorporated into second/foreign language (L2 hereafter) course instruction during the past decade. However, many teaching methods essentially employed it as a reactive mode of L2 instruction. Many other methods have been designed to facilitate constructive L2 production. They are, however, limited in their…

  10. English Grammar in School Textbooks: A Critical Survey.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Collis, Peter; Hollo, Carmella; Mar, Juliet

    1997-01-01

    Reports findings from a critical analysis of English grammar books and language books with grammar content used in New South Wales (Australia) elementary and secondary schools. Books surveyed showed a low level of awareness of developments in contemporary linguistics, particularly the structural approach to grammar instruction. (Author/MSE)

  11. "I'll Take Commas for $200": An Instructional Intervention Using Games to Help Students Master Grammar Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bullard, Sue Burzynski; Anderson, Nancy

    2014-01-01

    Effective writing requires mastering grammar. For journalists, this mastery is critical because research shows poor grammar erodes media credibility. College writing instructors say students do not understand basic grammar concepts, and greater numbers of students are enrolling in remedial writing classes. This quasi-experimental mixed methods…

  12. Teacher to Teacher: What Is Your Most Compelling Reason for Teaching Grammar?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    English Journal, 2006

    2006-01-01

    This article presents compelling reasons from teachers why they teach grammar. Amy Benjamin from Hendrick Hudson High School says, she teaches grammar for two reasons. The first is that grammar instruction gives students metalanguage, "language about language." The second reason is that students are interested in language--its changes and…

  13. Stratificational Grammar.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Algeo, John

    1968-01-01

    According to the author, most grammarians have been writing stratificational grammars without knowing it because they have dealt with units that are related to one another, but not simply as a whole to its parts, or as a class to its members. The question, then, is not whether a grammar is stratified but whether it is explicitly stratified. This…

  14. English Grammar in American Schools before 1850. Bulletin, 1921, No. 12

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lyman, Rollo LaVerne

    1922-01-01

    English grammar, as a formal subject, distinct from other branches of instruction in the vernacular, made but sporadic appearances in the American schools before 1775. After the Revolution its rise was extremely rapid. English grammar gained momentum as the hold of Latin grammar weakened, and by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth…

  15. Quel Eclectisme en grammaire? (What Eclecticism in Grammar?)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beacco, Jean-Claude

    1987-01-01

    The teaching of grammar provides more options for teacher strategies than almost any other area of language teaching, but because of the nature of grammar and classroom language instruction, using a variety of approaches is a more appropriate strategy. (MSE)

  16. Faut-il Mettre "Un Bonnet Rouge" a la grammaire francaise (Must We Put a "Bonnet Rouge" on French Grammar?).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jaussaud, Francoise

    1989-01-01

    An experimental approach to French grammar instruction at the American School of Madrid, based on a restructuring of the grammar around the verb, provides a promising new perspective for language pedagogy. (MSE)

  17. Comment and Response.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    College English, 1985

    1985-01-01

    Critics comment on three earlier "College English" articles: Mike Rose's "The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University," Elizabeth A. Nist's "Tattle's Well's Faire: English Women Authors of the Sixteenth Century," and Patrick Hartwell's "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar." Contains responses from Mike Rose and…

  18. Pedagogical Knowledge Base Underlying EFL Teachers' Provision of Oral Corrective Feedback in Grammar Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Atai, Mahmood Reza; Shafiee, Zahra

    2017-01-01

    The present study investigated the pedagogical knowledge base underlying EFL teachers' provision of oral corrective feedback in grammar instruction. More specifically, we explored the consistent thought patterns guiding the decisions of three Iranian teachers regarding oral corrective feedback on grammatical errors. We also examined the potential…

  19. The Role of Guided Induction in Paper-Based Data-Driven Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smart, Jonathan

    2014-01-01

    This study examines the role of guided induction as an instructional approach in paper-based data-driven learning (DDL) in the context of an ESL grammar course during an intensive English program at an American public university. Specifically, it examines whether corpus-informed grammar instruction is more effective through inductive, data-driven…

  20. Evaluation of Turkish Grammar Instruction Based on Primary School Teachers' Opinions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Anilan, Hüseyin

    2014-01-01

    This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the holistic approach to Turkish grammar instruction in the first stage of primary education from the opinions and experiences of Turkish primary school teachers. This study is a qualitative research designed as a phenomenological study. The study participants were selected using maximum variation…

  1. Pratiquer une grammaire textuelle (Practicing Textual Grammar).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bourdet, Jean-Francois

    1992-01-01

    A discussion of textual, as contrasted with traditional, grammar for French second-language instruction argues that textual grammar is essential for acquisition of communicative competence because it identifies grammatical facts relevant to everyday communication and allows the student to experience the construction of meaning through them. (MSE)

  2. An Evaluation of Computer-Assisted Instruction for English Grammar Review.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Oates, William

    1981-01-01

    The use of computer assisted instruction (CAI) at Indiana University to provide basic grammar review to beginning writing students, and the results of an evaluation of the PLATO system as a learning resource are described. At the time of the evaluation, the CAI curriculum in use was the Language Arts Routing System (LARS). The evaluation involved…

  3. Completing the Task Procedure or Focusing on Form: Contextualizing Grammar Instruction via Task-Based Teaching

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Saraç, Hatice Sezgi

    2018-01-01

    In this study, it was aimed to compare two distinct methodologies of grammar instruction: task-based and form-focused teaching. Within the application procedure, which lasted for one academic term, two groups of tertiary level learners (N = 53) were exposed to the same sequence of target structures, extensive writing activities and evaluation…

  4. Using Rasch Measurement Theory to Examine Two Instructional Approaches for Teaching and Learning of French Grammar

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vogel, Severine P.; Engelhard, George, Jr.

    2011-01-01

    The authors describe a quantitative approach based on Rasch measurement theory for evaluating classroom assessments within the context of foreign language classes. A secondary purpose was to examine the effects of two instructional approaches to teach grammar, a guided inductive and a deductive approach, through the lens of Rasch measurement…

  5. Sociocultural Theory and a Pragma-Linguistic Pedagogical Intervention

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Scott, Eric

    2015-01-01

    L2 pragmatic instruction in grammar and writing is an area of second language acquisition that is underutilized by many teachers. This paper follows the process of one teacher as the instruction of the pragmatic speech act of requesting is integrated into a low-level grammar class. First, an argument is made for the importance of including…

  6. Sensing the Sentence: An Embodied Simulation Approach to Rhetorical Grammar

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rule, Hannah J.

    2017-01-01

    This article applies the neuroscientific concept of embodied simulation--the process of understanding language through visual, motor, and spatial modalities of the body--to rhetorical grammar and sentence-style pedagogies. Embodied simulation invigorates rhetorical grammar instruction by attuning writers to the felt effects of written language,…

  7. Research into Practice: Grammar Learning and Teaching

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Larsen-Freeman, Diane

    2015-01-01

    This selective review of the second language acquisition and applied linguistics research literature on grammar learning and teaching falls into three categories: where research has had little impact (the non-interface position), modest impact (form-focused instruction), and where it potentially can have a large impact (reconceiving grammar).…

  8. The Place of Grammar in the Language Arts Curriculum.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Einarsson, Robert

    The history of grammar instruction includes two approaches: the handbook approach, which is practiced today, and the textbook approach. The handbook approach focuses on rules for correct writing and is an error-based view, while the textbook approach would treat grammar holistically and interpretively and would systematically explain new concepts…

  9. Grammar Teaching and Learning in L2: Necessary, but Boring?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jean, Gladys; Simard, Daphnee

    2011-01-01

    This descriptive inquiry-based study targeted second language (L2) high school students' (n = 2321) and teachers' (n = 45) beliefs and perceptions about grammar instruction, specifically about grammatical accuracy, corrective feedback, and diverse forms of grammar teaching and learning. Results showed only slight discrepancies between students'…

  10. Environmental Peace Education in Foreign Language Learners' English Grammar Lessons

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Arikan, Arda

    2009-01-01

    English language teachers create contexts to teach grammar so that meaningful learning occurs. In this study, English grammar is contextualized through environmental peace education activities to raise students' awareness of global issues. Two sources provided data to evaluate the success of this instructional process. Fourth-year pre-service…

  11. An Investigation of the Effects of Background Music on Learning of Vocabulary and Grammar and in Public Speaking.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wolff, Florence I.

    To determine the effect of background music during classroom instruction in vocabulary and grammar and in the delivery of speeches, sophomore high school students were divided into an experimental group (66 students) and a control group (60 students). For one semester the experimental group heard classical background music during instruction,…

  12. A GRAMMAR OF SPOKEN CHINESE.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    CHAO, YUEN REN

    THE AUTHOR OF THIS GRAMMAR STATES THAT THIS IS A "DISCUSSION BOOK" AND NOT AN INSTRUCTION BOOK FOR LEARNING CHINESE. HIS ANALYSIS OF CHINESE GRAMMAR IS BASED ON CURRENT LINGUISTIC METHODS AND ASSUMES THE READER HAS SOME KNOWLEDGE OF LINGUISTICS. THIS BOOK CONSTITUTES A REFERENCE WORK FOR LINGUISTS AND STUDENTS OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. MAJOR…

  13. Using Three Online Course Management Systems in EFL Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Al-Jarf, Reima Sado

    2005-01-01

    Nicenet, WebCT and Moodle were used to teach grammar to freshman students at the College of Languages and Translation, King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. The subjects were divided into three groups and were randomly assigned to the three online courses. The same questions, discussion threads, grammar websites, daily grammar lesson, exercises…

  14. Propelling Students into Active Grammar Participation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jurhill, Dennis A.

    2011-01-01

    "O! this learning, what a thing it is." -W. Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew." The aim of this action research was to find out if active grammar involvement amongst students might lead to better results. My approach was to activate my students during grammar instruction by using cooperative learning: that is a form of…

  15. My New Teaching Partner? Using the Grammar Checker in Writing Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Potter, Reva; Fuller, Dorothy

    2008-01-01

    Grammar checkers do not claim to teach grammar; they are tools to bring potential problems to the writer's attention. They also offer only formal and Standard English preferences, limiting the freer expression of some literary forms. Without guidance, students may misuse the checker, become frustrated, and feel discouraged. Users must be…

  16. EEG: Elements of English Grammar: Rules Explained Simply. Workbook.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ratti, Marianne

    This workbook is a supplement to Harold Van Winkle's "Elements of English Grammar: Rules Explained Simply," a book intended for self-instruction which presents the basic rules of standard English grammar in an easy-to-understand manner. The workbook's six chapters correspond to those in the book and contain exercises on: (1) The…

  17. Student Teacher Beliefs on Grammar Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Graus, Johan; Coppen, Peter-Arno

    2016-01-01

    The role of grammar teaching in foreign language education is a controversial one both in second language acquisition (SLA) research and language pedagogy and, as a result, a potential source of confusion to student teachers. The objective of this study was to gain insight into the beliefs on grammar teaching of student teachers of English as a…

  18. Grammaire francaise pour etudiants americains (French Grammar for American Students): Workbook and Answers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Giauque, Gerald S.

    This workbook in French grammar, intended for American college students, provides instruction and practice in French morphology, syntax, vocabulary, punctuation, and language style at the intermediate level. It is also designed to increase or reinforce the students' understanding of English grammar, based on the assumption that American students…

  19. Cooperative Business Education - 7725 (Reinforcing Knowledge of Grammar): Department 48 - Course 7725.08.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dade County Public Schools, Miami, FL.

    The essential elements of grammar required to write business letters, memorandums, and reports are covered in this quinmester course. The course consists of a complete grammar review and the learning of proofreading skills for students in the Cooperative Business Education program in Dade County High Schools. Instruction techniques include group…

  20. Dual-modality impairment of implicit learning of letter-strings versus color-patterns in patients with schizophrenia.

    PubMed

    Chiu, Ming-Jang; Liu, Kristina; Hsieh, Ming H; Hwu, Hai-Gwo

    2005-12-12

    Implicit learning was reported to be intact in schizophrenia using artificial grammar learning. However, emerging evidence indicates that artificial grammar learning is not a unitary process. The authors used dual coding stimuli and schizophrenia clinical symptom dimensions to re-evaluate the effect of schizophrenia on various components of artificial grammar learning. Letter string and color pattern artificial grammar learning performances were compared between 63 schizophrenic patients and 27 comparison subjects. Four symptom dimensions derived from a Chinese Positive and Negative Symptom Scale ratings were correlated with patients' artificial grammar implicit learning performances along the two stimulus dimensions. Patients' explicit memory performances were assessed by verbal paired associates and visual reproduction subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scales Revised Version to provide a contrast to their implicit memory function. Schizophrenia severely hindered color pattern artificial grammar learning while the disease affected lexical string artificial grammar learning to a lesser degree after correcting the influences from age, education and the performance of explicit memory function of both verbal and visual modalities. Both learning performances correlated significantly with the severity of patients' schizophrenic clinical symptom dimensions that reflect poor abstract thinking, disorganized thinking, and stereotyped thinking. The results of this study suggested that schizophrenia affects various mechanisms of artificial grammar learning differently. Implicit learning, knowledge acquisition in the absence of conscious awareness, is not entirely intact in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia affects implicit learning through an impairment of the ability of making abstractions from rules and at least in part decreasing the capacity for perceptual learning.

  1. German Grammar in the Students' Words: The "Essentialization" of German Grammar by American College-Level Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chavez, Monika

    2011-01-01

    This study of 134 college-level learners of German, enrolled in four years of instruction, showed them to "essentialize" German grammar when asked to describe it to a hypothetical friend. Kubota defined the term essentialization to capture learners' views of the target culture. Its main characteristic is the presupposition of "essential, stable,…

  2. Le montage d'une grammaire seconde (The Construction of a Second Grammar)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Adamczewski, Henri

    1975-01-01

    Discusses the influence of modern linguistic research on foreign language instruction. Shows the role of grammar 1 in the acquisition of grammar 2, and specifically when French is 1 and English is 2. Considers that conscious, systematic knowledge of L2, learned through L1, is positive for second language acquisition. (Text is in French.) (TL)

  3. Knowing English Grammar--An Important Aid in Second Language Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cleary, Colin

    2004-01-01

    This article discusses a small-scale study that explored students', teachers', and university lecturers' beliefs about the value of studying English grammar in foreign and second language learning. A major debate in second language acquisition literature has been concerned with experiential (implicit) learning as opposed to analytical (explicit)…

  4. Breakthroughs in Composition Instruction Methods without Evidence of Tangible Improvements in Students' Composition: When Will Change Come?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Walsh, S. M.

    Throughout the early years of the twentieth century, literacy education was based on the solid understanding of grammar. Yet as early as 1923, empirical data indicated that the link between knowledge of grammar and correct use of English was tenuous at best. Despite formidable evidence, some educators still advocate the use of grammar as a…

  5. L'Enseignement de la grammaire en langue etrangere: Contenus et processus (The Teaching of Grammar in a Foreign Language: Content and Process).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Calliabetsou, Penelope

    A discussion, in French, of second language grammar instruction looks at the differences between a traditional linguistic approach to grammar learning, used less and less with the advent of communicative language teaching methods, and a sociolinguistic approach, which focuses more closely on the sociocultural context of functional variants of a…

  6. Symbols, Relations, and Structural Complexity.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reich, Peter A.

    This paper discusses an alternate formalism for context-free phrase structure grammar. The author feels that if a grammar is stated completely explicitly it can be represented in the form of a relational network of the type proposed by Lamb. He discusses some formal properties of such networks and makes some revisions to Lamb's formulation which…

  7. Pour une approche des grammaires d'apprentissage (Toward an Approach to Learners' Grammars).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Feve, Guy

    1984-01-01

    An approach to teaching grammar that combines an understanding of the error patterns of nonnative speakers and a theoretical model that describes that language is better suited than most to the actual audience of that instruction. (MSE)

  8. Spontaneous Grammar Explanations.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tjoo, Hong Sing; Lewis, Marilyn

    1998-01-01

    Describes one New Zealand university language teacher's reflection on her own grammar explanations to university-level students of Bahasa Indonesian. Examines form-focused instruction through the teacher's spontaneous answers to students' questions about the form of the language they are studying. The teacher's experiences show that it takes time…

  9. Improving DHH Students' Grammar through an Individualized Software Program

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cannon, Joanna E.; Easterbrooks, Susan R.; Gagne, Phill; Beal-Alvarez, Jennifer

    2011-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine if the frequent use of a targeted, computer software grammar instruction program, used as an individualized classroom activity, would influence the comprehension of morphosyntax structures (determiners, tense, and complementizers) in deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) participants who use American Sign Language…

  10. Une nouvelle facon de decouvrir la grammaire (A New Way of Discovering Grammar).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gutierrez, Alma Rosa Aguilar; Duarte, Delma Gonzalez

    1993-01-01

    A discussion of French grammar instruction looks at the relationship between linguistic competence and communicative competence. It offers exercises emphasizing the logic of language, using four different approaches. Three of the exercises use texts (included), and the fourth requires the student to describe a room. (MSE)

  11. Literature and Grammar.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Claremont, Francesca

    1993-01-01

    This reprint of a lecture published in 1976 examines the uses of history and literary stories for instructing children in grammar, creative dramatics, natural history, and prehistory, as well as literary analysis. Provides a starting point for thinking about the power of literature as an integrating medium in the Montessori elementary classroom.…

  12. Individual differences in adult foreign language learning: the mediating effect of metalinguistic awareness.

    PubMed

    Brooks, Patricia J; Kempe, Vera

    2013-02-01

    In this study, we sought to identify cognitive predictors of individual differences in adult foreign-language learning and to test whether metalinguistic awareness mediated the observed relationships. Using a miniature language-learning paradigm, adults (N = 77) learned Russian vocabulary and grammar (gender agreement and case marking) over six 1-h sessions, completing tasks that encouraged attention to phrases without explicitly teaching grammatical rules. The participants' ability to describe the Russian gender and case-marking patterns mediated the effects of nonverbal intelligence and auditory sequence learning on grammar learning and generalization. Hence, even under implicit-learning conditions, individual differences stemmed from explicit metalinguistic awareness of the underlying grammar, which, in turn, was linked to nonverbal intelligence and auditory sequence learning. Prior knowledge of languages with grammatical gender (predominantly Spanish) predicted learning of gender agreement. Transfer of knowledge of gender from other languages to Russian was not mediated by awareness, which suggests that transfer operates through an implicit process akin to structural priming.

  13. The Interface between Student Teacher Grammar Cognitions and Learner-Oriented Cognitions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Graus, Johan; Coppen, Peter-Arno

    2017-01-01

    It is widely accepted that teacher cognitions--what teachers know, think, and believe--play a significant part in teachers' decision-making processes. The present study investigated the specific cognitions that 74 Dutch undergraduate and postgraduate student teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) had on grammar instruction and how these…

  14. Improving the Grammatical Accuracy of the Spoken English of Indonesian International Kindergarten Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gozali, Imelda; Harjanto, Ignatius

    2014-01-01

    The need to improve the spoken English of kindergarten students in an international preschool in Surabaya prompted this Classroom Action Research (CAR). It involved the implementation of Form-Focused Instruction (FFI) strategy coupled with Corrective Feedback (CF) in Grammar lessons. Four grammar topics were selected, namely Regular Plural form,…

  15. Input-Based Grammar Pedagogy: A Comparison of Two Possibilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Marsden, Emma

    2005-01-01

    This article presents arguments for using listening and reading activities as an option for techniques in grammar pedagogy. It describes two possible approaches: Processing Instruction (PI) and Enriched Input (EI), and examples of their key features are included in the appendices. The article goes on to report on a classroom based quasi-experiment…

  16. A Model for Applying Lexical Approach in Teaching Russian Grammar.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gettys, Serafima

    The lexical approach to teaching Russian grammar is explained, an instructional sequence is outlined, and a classroom study testing the effectiveness of the approach is reported. The lexical approach draws on research on cognitive psychology, second language acquisition theory, and research on learner language. Its bases in research and its…

  17. EEG: Elements of English Grammar: Rules Explained Simply.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Van Winkle, Harold

    Intended to help interested people speak and write more correctly through self-instruction, this book presents the basic rules of standard English grammar in an easy-to-understand manner. The book's six chapters are as follows: (1) The Sentence; (2) Parts of Speech; (3) Case; (4) Modifiers; (5) Agreement; and (6) Building Better Sentences. The…

  18. Elaborer un exercice de grammaire (Working Out a Grammar Exercise)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Principaud, Jeanne-Marie

    1977-01-01

    An elaboration of the official instruction on teaching French to native speakers in elementary school. The topics covered are: Methodological development of exercises; the linguistic ability and milieu of the students; operative criteria; and the question of a logical progression or spontaneous use of grammar exercises. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

  19. Writing Skills for Technical Students. Fourth Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Carlisle, Vicky; Smith, Harriet; Baker, Fred; Ellegood, George; Kopay, Carol; Tanzer, Ward; Young, Diana; Dujordan, Jerome; Webster, Ron; Lewis, Sara Drew

    This self-paced text/workbook is designed for the adult learner who needs a review of grammar and writing skills in order to write clearly and concisely on the job. It offers career-minded students 14 individualized instructional modules on grammar, paragraph writing, report writing, letter writing, and spelling. It is designed for both self-paced…

  20. Computer vs. Workbook Instruction in Second Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nagata, Noriko

    1996-01-01

    Compares the effectiveness of Nihongo-CALI (Japanese Computer Assisted Language Instruction) with non-CALI workbook instruction. Findings reveal that given the same grammar notes and exercises, ongoing intelligent computer feedback is more effective than simple workbook answer sheets for developing learners' grammatical skill in producing Japanese…

  1. The architecture of intuition: Fluency and affect determine intuitive judgments of semantic and visual coherence and judgments of grammaticality in artificial grammar learning.

    PubMed

    Topolinski, Sascha; Strack, Fritz

    2009-02-01

    People can intuitively detect whether a word triad has a common remote associate (coherent) or does not have one (incoherent) before and independently of actually retrieving the common associate. The authors argue that semantic coherence increases the processing fluency for coherent triads and that this increased fluency triggers a brief and subtle positive affect, which is the experiential basis of these intuitions. In a series of 11 experiments with 3 different fluency manipulations (figure-ground contrast, repeated exposure, and subliminal visual priming) and 3 different affect inductions (short-timed facial feedback, subliminal facial priming, and affect-laden word triads), high fluency and positive affect independently and additively increased the probability that triads would be judged as coherent, irrespective of actual coherence. The authors could equalize and even reverse coherence judgments (i.e., incoherent triads were judged to be coherent more frequently than were coherent triads). When explicitly instructed, participants were unable to correct their judgments for the influence of affect, although they were aware of the manipulation. The impact of fluency and affect was also generalized to intuitions of visual coherence and intuitions of grammaticality in an artificial grammar learning paradigm. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

  2. Applications of Universal Grammar (UG) in the ESL/EFL Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kirkwold, Lorne O.

    2007-01-01

    The article proposes Stern's (1983) framework for classifying issues related to instruction in order to ascertain the relevance of Universal Grammar (UG) in the ESL/EFL classroom. Discussed in this article, particularly as UG pertains to them, are issues related to: (a) L1 transfer; (b) teaching rules and giving error correction versus presenting…

  3. A Rough Guide to Language Awareness

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bourke, James M.

    2008-01-01

    For teachers of a second language (L2), the role of grammar instruction in the classroom has been a perennial subject of debate and has undergone many changes over the years. For example, the once well-respected traditional methods that relied on extensive drilling and memorization of grammar evoked a backlash in the 1970s, which resulted in new…

  4. Coaching, Not Correcting: An Alternative Model for Minority Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dresser, Rocío; Asato, Jolynn

    2014-01-01

    The debate on the role of oral corrective feedback or "repair" in English instruction settings has been going on for over 30 years. Some educators believe that oral grammar correction is effective because they have noticed that students who learned a set of grammar rules were more likely to use them in real life communication (Krashen,…

  5. The Effects of Organization and Instructional Set on Story Memory. Technical Report No. 68.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stein, Nancy L.; Nezworski, Teresa

    Sixty four college students participated in a study which sought to validate a set of predictions about story memory, derived from a story-grammar approach to comprehension. The grammar describes the higher-order structures regulating the organization and retrieval of incoming story information. These structures, defined by a basic set of rewrite…

  6. The Utility of Blended Learning in EFL Reading and Grammar: A Case for Moodle

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bataineh, Ruba Fahmi; Mayyas, Mais Barjas

    2017-01-01

    This study examines the effect of Moodle-enhanced instruction on Jordanian EFL students' reading comprehension and grammar performance. The study uses a quasi-experimental, pre- /post-test design. A purposeful sample of 32 students, enrolled in a language requirement course at a Jordanian state university, was randomly divided into an experimental…

  7. The Roots of a Dynasty: The Rise of Warriner's "Grammar and Composition."

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johannessen, Larry R.

    Noting the popularity and wide use of John Warriner's series of English grammar and composition textbooks and workbooks for high school students (first published in 1948), this paper argues that rhetorical theory informs the series, despite Warriner's claims that his approach was based on axioms of writing instruction. The paper also speculates on…

  8. De l'enseignement de la grammaire par l'Internet (Grammar Instruction using the Internet).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beaudoin, Martin

    1998-01-01

    Examines pedagogical advantages and limitations of the Internet for teaching French grammar, and shows how these factors were taken into consideration in creating a Web site at the University of Alberta (Canada), with special emphasis on the integration of exchanges between learners, and exchanges between learners and the virtual francophone…

  9. Content Validation of the Comprehension of Written Grammar Assessment for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cannon, Joanna E.; Hubley, Anita M.

    2014-01-01

    Content validation is a crucial, but often neglected, component of good test development. In the present study, content validity evidence was collected to determine the degree to which elements (e.g., grammatical structures, items, picture responses, administration, and scoring instructions) of the Comprehension of Written Grammar (CWG) test are…

  10. Effectiveness of Read-Aloud Instruction on Motivation and Learning Strategy among Japanese College EFL Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shinozuka, Katsumasa; Shibata, Setsue; Mizusawa, Yumiko

    2017-01-01

    Poor English performance among Japanese college EFL students has often been explained by grammar-translation and lecture-memorization instruction. This study investigated the effectiveness of a recently designed teaching method, namely, "The read-aloud instruction package," which consists of four major activities: Slash/chunked reading…

  11. EFL and Educational Reform: Content-Based Instruction in Argentina.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Snow, Marguerite Ann; Cortes, Viviana; Pron, Alejandra V.

    1998-01-01

    Discusses initial experiences with content-based instruction in Argentina. The new approach was precipitated in part by educational reform. Suggests that the dramatic shift from a grammar-based approach to a communicative approach, and the use of language as a tool for instruction may become overwhelming for most teachers. (Author/VWL)

  12. Teaching Pragmatics in the Foreign Language Classroom: Grammar as a Communicative Resource

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Felix-Brasdefer, J. Cesar; Cohen, Andrew D.

    2012-01-01

    This article focuses on the teaching of pragmatics in the Spanish as a Foreign Language classroom and examines the role of grammar as a communicative resource. It also aims to highlight the importance of teaching pragmatics from beginning levels of language instruction, with the spotlight on speech acts at the discourse level. After the concept of…

  13. The Effectiveness of Processing Instruction and Production-Based Instruction on L2 Grammar Acquisition: A Meta-Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shintani, Natsuko

    2015-01-01

    This article reports a meta-analysis of 42 experiments in 33 published studies involving processing instruction (PI) and production-based instruction (PB) used in the PI studies. The comparative effectiveness of PI and PB showed that although PI was more effective than PB for developing receptive knowledge, PB was just as effective as PI for…

  14. Allo France (Hello, France).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dominique, Philippe

    1987-01-01

    The second volume of a series of textbooks designed for young students of French is reviewed by examining how the dialogs, phonological information, grammar instruction and notes, exercises, characters and their language, cultural information, and photos and documents correspond to the authors' expressed instructional intentions. (MSE)

  15. Sounding Right.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Burling, Robbins

    Aspects of second language learning and instruction are explored in order to develop a rationale for a comprehension-based approach to language instruction. Eight characteristic pedagogical assumptions are critically examined, including assumptions regarding the role of grammar, age differences in learning ability, the priority given to each of…

  16. [Unipacs: A-LM German, Units 3-29].

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    West Bend High Schools, WI.

    These instructional materials, designed for use with the "A-LM" German language course, permit teachers to individualize instruction. Basic objectives are outlined concerning basic dialogues, vocabulary, supplementary materials, reading, grammar, recombination materials, and creative conversation. A student checklist serves as a guide for the…

  17. Comprehension-Based versus Production-Based Grammar Instruction: A Meta-Analysis of Comparative Studies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shintani, Natsuko; Li, Shaofeng; Ellis, Rod

    2013-01-01

    This article reports a meta-analysis of studies that investigated the relative effectiveness of comprehension-based instruction (CBI) and production-based instruction (PBI). The meta-analysis only included studies that featured a direct comparison of CBI and PBI in order to ensure methodological and statistical robustness. A total of 35 research…

  18. Textlinguistik und Schulunterricht. Am Beispiel der Behandlung der indirekten Rede im Englischen. (Text Linguistics and Instruction in the Schools: Example: The Treatment of Indirect Discourse in English).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kueper, Christoph

    1979-01-01

    Compares sentence grammar with text linguistics, giving a survey of the treatment of indirect discourse in school grammars, and finding them inadequate. Recommends rules derived from text linguistics in spite of their greater complexity, because they do not hold the student to mechanical recasting of sentences. (IFS/WGA)

  19. Attribute And-Or Grammar for Joint Parsing of Human Pose, Parts and Attributes.

    PubMed

    Park, Seyoung; Nie, Xiaohan; Zhu, Song-Chun

    2017-07-25

    This paper presents an attribute and-or grammar (A-AOG) model for jointly inferring human body pose and human attributes in a parse graph with attributes augmented to nodes in the hierarchical representation. In contrast to other popular methods in the current literature that train separate classifiers for poses and individual attributes, our method explicitly represents the decomposition and articulation of body parts, and account for the correlations between poses and attributes. The A-AOG model is an amalgamation of three traditional grammar formulations: (i)Phrase structure grammar representing the hierarchical decomposition of the human body from whole to parts; (ii)Dependency grammar modeling the geometric articulation by a kinematic graph of the body pose; and (iii)Attribute grammar accounting for the compatibility relations between different parts in the hierarchy so that their appearances follow a consistent style. The parse graph outputs human detection, pose estimation, and attribute prediction simultaneously, which are intuitive and interpretable. We conduct experiments on two tasks on two datasets, and experimental results demonstrate the advantage of joint modeling in comparison with computing poses and attributes independently. Furthermore, our model obtains better performance over existing methods for both pose estimation and attribute prediction tasks.

  20. Instructional Variables in Meaningful Learning of Computer Programming.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mayer, Richard E.

    Some 120 undergraduate students participated in experiments to learn how novice computer programers learn to interact with the computer. Two instructional booklets were used: A "rule" booklet consisted of definitions and examples of seven modified FORTRAN statements and appropriate grammar rules; the "model" booklet was…

  1. Focus-on-form instructional methods promote deaf college students' improvement in English grammar.

    PubMed

    Berent, Gerald P; Kelly, Ronald R; Aldersley, Stephen; Schmitz, Kathryn L; Khalsa, Baldev Kaur; Panara, John; Keenan, Susan

    2007-01-01

    Focus-on-form English teaching methods are designed to facilitate second-language learners' noticing of target language input, where "noticing" is an acquisitional prerequisite for the comprehension, processing, and eventual integration of new grammatical knowledge. While primarily designed for teaching hearing second-language learners, many focus-on-form methods lend themselves to visual presentation. This article reports the results of classroom research on the visually based implementation of focus-on-form methods with deaf college students learning English. Two of 3 groups of deaf students received focus-on-form instruction during a 10-week remedial grammar course; a third control group received grammatical instruction that did not involve focus-on-form methods. The 2 experimental groups exhibited significantly greater improvement in English grammatical knowledge relative to the control group. These results validate the efficacy of visually based focus-on-form English instruction for deaf students of English and set the stage for the continual search for innovative and effective English teaching methodologies.

  2. Implicit and Explicit Measures of Sensitivity to Violations in Second Language Grammar: An Event-Related Potential Investigation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tokowicz, Natasha; MacWhinney, Brian

    2005-01-01

    We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate the contributions of explicit and implicit processes during second language (L2) sentence comprehension. We used a L2 grammaticality judgment task (GJT) to test 20 native English speakers enrolled in the first four semesters of Spanish while recording both accuracy and ERP data. Because…

  3. Making the Implicit Explicit: The Grammar of Inferential Reasoning in the Humanities and Social Sciences

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Luckett, Kathy

    2016-01-01

    This is a theoretical paper that addresses the challenge of educational access to the Humanities and Social Sciences. It plots a theoretical quest to develop an explicit pedagogy to give "disadvantaged" students in the Humanities ways of working successfully with texts. In doing so it draws on Bernstein, Moore and Maton's work to…

  4. A Group of Indonesian Adult EFL Students' Mastery of Tenses and Aspects: Investigating the Internal and External Factors of Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Muhlisin; Salikin, Hairus

    2015-01-01

    The study aimed, firstly, to assess a group of Indonesian adult EFL students' mastery of tenses and aspects as part of their mastery of English grammar and, secondly, to identify if their experience of going through the instructional processes, their perceptions of and habits in studying English grammar shaped their mastery of tenses and aspects.…

  5. Food for Thought: A Cooking Approach to Reading.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coutu, Linda A.; And Others

    Because third-grade students had difficulty following directions and completing sequencing activities, the Pascoag Grammar School (Rhode Island) developed an instructional program of cooking and cooking-related activities for implementation during the school year. This publication, which documents the instructional strategy, consists mainly of 15…

  6. Applying Pedagogical Principles to Grammar Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kanda, Makiko; Beglar, David

    2004-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of two experimental methods of teaching the present progressive verb tense based on four instructional principles: teach form-function relations, compare similar grammatical forms, promote learner autonomy, and provide opportunities for generative use. Ninety-nine Japanese first-year…

  7. Basic Skills, Basic Writing, Basic Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Trimmer, Joseph F.

    1987-01-01

    Overviews basic writing instruction and research by briefly discussing the history of remediation, results of a survey of basic writing programs in U.S. colleges and universities, and interviews with developmental textbook editors at major publishing houses. Finds that basic writing instruction continues to focus on sentence grammar. (MM)

  8. Tunisia cours complementaire (Tunisia Complementary Course).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Peace Corps (Thailand).

    The instructional materials in French are designed for use by language trainers of Peace Corps volunteers serving in francophone Tunisia, to supplement situational language and grammar instruction. A brief introductory section offers strategies for teaching verb tenses. The diverse materials that follow include lists of situational questions in…

  9. Examining the cognitive demands of analogy instructions compared to explicit instructions.

    PubMed

    Tse, Choi Yeung Andy; Wong, Andus; Whitehill, Tara; Ma, Estella; Masters, Rich

    2016-10-01

    In many learning domains, instructions are presented explicitly despite high cognitive demands associated with their processing. This study examined cognitive demands imposed on working memory by different types of instruction to speak with maximum pitch variation: visual analogy, verbal analogy and explicit verbal instruction. Forty participants were asked to memorise a set of 16 visual and verbal stimuli while reading aloud a Cantonese paragraph with maximum pitch variation. Instructions about how to achieve maximum pitch variation were presented via visual analogy, verbal analogy, explicit rules or no instruction. Pitch variation was assessed off-line, using standard deviation of fundamental frequency. Immediately after reading, participants recalled as many stimuli as possible. Analogy instructions resulted in significantly increased pitch variation compared to explicit instructions or no instructions. Explicit instructions resulted in poorest recall of stimuli. Visual analogy instructions resulted in significantly poorer recall of visual stimuli than verbal stimuli. The findings suggest that non-propositional instructions presented via analogy may be less cognitively demanding than instructions that are presented explicitly. Processing analogy instructions that are presented as a visual representation is likely to load primarily visuospatial components of working memory rather than phonological components. The findings are discussed with reference to speech therapy and human cognition.

  10. Individualizing English Instruction.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brown, Karol Lawson

    Geared to the grammar area of the English curriculum, this self-instructional package was designed to aid seventh, eighth, and ninth grade students in recognizing three types of adverbs ("how,""when," and "where"). The package defines the three types, lists examples, and provides exercises. It also contains a pretest and a posttest. (FL)

  11. Using Processing Instruction for the Acquisition of English Present Perfect of Filipinos

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Erfe, Jonathan P.; Lintao, Rachelle B.

    2012-01-01

    This is an experimental study on the relative effects of Van Patten's Processing Instruction (PI) (1996, 2002), a "psycholinguistically-motivated" intervention in teaching second-language (L2) grammar, on young-adult Filipino learners of English. A growing body of research on this methodological alternative, which establishes…

  12. Mende Language Manual. Revised Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Musa, Allieu V. V.; Pemagbi, Joe

    A set of instructional materials for Mende is designed for Peace Corps volunteer language instruction and geared to the daily language needs of volunteers in Sierra Leone. It consists of two parts, a series of lessons on situations emphasizing vocabulary development through dialogues and drills, and a series of grammar lessons. Only the first…

  13. An Investigation of the Relationship between Grammar Type and Efficacy of Form-Focused Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schenck, Andrew Douglas

    2018-01-01

    Because phonological, semantic, and morphosyntactic characteristics of grammatical features can have a significant impact on form-focused instruction, utilization of different grammatical features to test new language teaching techniques may conflate determinations of efficacy or inefficacy. The purpose of this study was to holistically examine…

  14. L'integration de la grammaire dans une approche interactive/experientielle en francais de base (The Integration of Grammar in an Interactive/Experiential Approach in Core French).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jean, Gladys

    1999-01-01

    Examines the integration of grammar into second-language instruction, specifically in core French courses in Canada. A brief overview of studies on this topic in different settings is followed by an attempt to demonstrate how the limited results of available studies can offer a starting point for finding solutions to the problems of integrating…

  15. Learning Complex Grammar in the Virtual Classroom: A Comparison of Processing Instruction, Structured Input, Computerized Visual Input Enhancement, and Traditional Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Russell, Victoria

    2012-01-01

    This study investigated the effects of processing instruction (PI) and structured input (SI) on the acquisition of the subjunctive in adjectival clauses by 92 second-semester distance learners of Spanish. Computerized visual input enhancement (VIE) was combined with PI and SI in an attempt to increase the salience of the targeted grammatical form…

  16. Explicit Instruction and Next Generation Science Standards Aligned Classrooms: A Fit or a Split?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Therrien, William J.; Benson, Sarah K.; Hughes, Charles A.; Morris, Jared R.

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this article is to discuss the use of explicit instruction in the curriculum area of science where non-explicit approaches (e.g., discovery learning) are often used. While there has been a relative paucity of research on explicit instruction in science classrooms, we argue that explicit instruction, particularly when it is embedded…

  17. On the Application of Corpus of Contemporary American English in Vocabulary Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yusu, Xu

    2014-01-01

    The development of corpus linguistics has laid theoretical foundation and provided technical support for breaking the bottleneck in traditional vocabulary instruction in China. Corpora allow access to authentic data and show frequency patterns of words and grammar construction. Such patterns can be used to improve language materials or to directly…

  18. Card Game Activities Using Grammar-Based Dialogues.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Willoughby, Sharon Elinor

    A practicum project to develop instructional materials and related class activities for students of English as a second language (ESL) is described. The context in which the project took place is the ESL instruction of Japanese students with minimal English skills and low motivation in an American community college in Japan. The materials consist…

  19. Theorie Grammaticale et Enseignement de la Grammaire (Grammatical Theory and Grammar Instruction). Melanges Pedagogiques, 1970.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Heddesheimer, C.

    This article discusses the problem of the relationship between scientific theory and teaching practice, between the linguist and the language teacher. Language instruction attempts more and more to approximate the mother tongue acquisition process, but the two processes remain distinct. However, good second language pedagogy will lead to…

  20. Making It Happen: Interaction in the Second Language Classroom, From Theory to Practice.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Richard-Amato, Patricia A.

    A discussion linking theory and practice in second language instruction focuses on ways of providing opportunities for meaningful interaction in language classrooms. The first part lays a theoretical foundation, looking at: the variety and evolution of instructional approaches from grammar-based to communicative; the classroom as environment for…

  1. An Investigation into the Use of Computer-Assisted Instruction to Present Basic English Grammar Concepts

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1991-09-01

    involved in choosing hardware and so-ftware for CAI "are.the lesson objectives and the future needs of the instructor and student" (18:6-2). And...did not cover the graiTmatical errors nighlighted by the survey of subject-matter ’experts. Future research should include an expansion of, or...display any hypertext document. This tutorial covered basic English grammar concepts. Future research should address the possibilities of developing

  2. Effects of divided attention and speeded responding on implicit and explicit retrieval of artificial grammar knowledge.

    PubMed

    Helman, Shaun; Berry, Dianne C

    2003-07-01

    The artificial grammar (AG) learning literature (see, e.g., Mathews et al., 1989; Reber, 1967) has relied heavily on a single measure of implicitly acquired knowledge. Recent work comparing this measure (string classification) with a more indirect measure in which participants make liking ratings of novel stimuli (e.g., Manza & Bornstein, 1995; Newell & Bright, 2001) has shown that string classification (which we argue can be thought of as an explicit, rather than an implicit, measure of memory) gives rise to more explicit knowledge of the grammatical structure in learning strings and is more resilient to changes in surface features and processing between encoding and retrieval. We report data from two experiments that extend these findings. In Experiment 1, we showed that a divided attention manipulation (at retrieval) interfered with explicit retrieval of AG knowledge but did not interfere with implicit retrieval. In Experiment 2, we showed that forcing participants to respond within a very tight deadline resulted in the same asymmetric interference pattern between the tasks. In both experiments, we also showed that the type of information being retrieved influenced whether interference was observed. The results are discussed in terms of the relatively automatic nature of implicit retrieval and also with respect to the differences between analytic and nonanalytic processing (Whittlesea & Price, 2001).

  3. A Comparison Study of the Effects of a Story-based Video Instructional Package Versus a Text-based Instructional Package in the Intermediate-level Foreign Language Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Herron, Carol; York, Holly; Corrie, Cathleen; Cole, Steven P.

    2006-01-01

    This study compared a story-based video instructional package, with a feature-length film as its focus, to a text-based program. It explored the effectiveness of each approach to enhance the listening and grammar performances of intermediate-level college French students. Twenty-seven students at two institutions participated. A pretest-posttest…

  4. Examining the Association between Explicit Mathematics Instruction and Student Mathematics Achievement

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Doabler, Christian T.; Baker, Scott K.; Kosty, Derek B.; Smolkowski, Keith; Clarke, Ben; Miller, Saralyn J.; Fien, Hank

    2015-01-01

    Explicit instruction is a systematic instructional approach that facilitates frequent and meaningful instructional interactions between teachers and students around critical academic content. This study examined the relationship between student mathematics outcomes and the rate and quality of explicit instructional interactions that occur during…

  5. Explicit Mathematics Instruction: What Teachers Can Do for Teaching Students With Mathematics Difficulties

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Doabler, Christian T.; Fien, Hank

    2013-01-01

    This article describes the essential instructional elements necessary for delivering explicit mathematics instruction to students with mathematics difficulties. Mathematics intervention research indicates that explicit instruction is one of the most effective instructional approaches for teaching students with or at risk for math difficulties.…

  6. Phonetics, Phonology, and Applied Linguistics.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nadasdy, Adam

    1995-01-01

    Examines recent trends in phonetics and phonology and their influence on second language instruction, specifically grammar and lexicography. An annotated bibliography discusses nine important works in the field. (99 references) (MDM)

  7. L'enseignement de la musique et de la langue seconde: pistes d'integration et consequences sur les apprentissages (The Teaching of Music and Second Language: Paths for Integration and Consequences for Instruction).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lowe, Anne S.

    1998-01-01

    An experiment in a grade 2 French immersion program compared performance of a group-taught music lessons totally integrated into classroom instruction and a group not given music instruction. Pre- and post-tests of tonal-rhythmic patterns and form that have commonalities with pronunciation, oral grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension found…

  8. Functional-Notional Concepts: Adapting the Foreign Language Textbook. Language in Education: Theory and Practice, No. 44.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Guntermann, Gail; Phillips, June K.

    Textbooks currently available for foreign language instruction are generally oriented toward instruction in grammar for its own sake. Until materials are developed that are specifically geared to a systematic development of communicative competence, textbooks must be adapted. This handbook is directed toward that need. It emphasizes the following…

  9. Implementing Task-Oriented Content-Based Instruction for First- and Second-Generation Immigrant Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Santana-Williamson, Eliana

    2013-01-01

    This article discusses how the ESL program at an ethnically/linguistically diverse community college (between San Diego and the Mexican border) moved from a general, grammar-based ESL curriculum to a content-based instruction (CBI) curriculum. The move was designed to better prepare 1st- and 2nd-generation immigrant students for freshman…

  10. The nature of declarative and nondeclarative knowledge for implicit and explicit learning.

    PubMed

    Kirkhart, M W

    2001-10-01

    Using traditional implicit and explicit artificial-grammar learning tasks, the author investigated the similarities and differences between the acquisition of declarative knowledge under implicit and explicit learning conditions and the functions of the declarative knowledge during testing. Results suggested that declarative knowledge was not predictive of or required for implicit learning but was related to consistency in implicit learning performance. In contrast, declarative knowledge was predictive of and required for explicit learning and was related to consistency in performance. For explicit learning, the declarative knowledge functioned as a guide for other behavior. In contrast, for implicit learning, the declarative knowledge did not serve as a guide for behavior but was instead a post hoc description of the most commonly seen stimuli.

  11. The Relevance of Accent in L2 Pronunciation Instruction: A Matter of Teaching Cultures or Language Ideologies?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Falkert, Anika

    2016-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to offer a critical discussion of the role of native and foreign accents in L2 pronunciation teaching. Several studies concluded that classroom practices of grammar instruction are strongly influenced by teaching cultures. We will examine whether this is also the case for pronunciation teaching. While the CEFR…

  12. Applying Form-Focused Approaches to L2 Vocabulary Instruction through Video Podcasts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Marefat, Fahimeh; Hassanzadeh, Mohammad

    2016-01-01

    Since its inception, form-focused instruction (FFI) has been associated with grammar, with only a handful of studies examining its potential for vocabulary development (e.g., Laufer, 2006). Meanwhile, there has been an unresolved dispute between the two approaches of Focus on Form (FonF) and Focus on Forms (FonFs) in terms of their degree of…

  13. Impact of Web-Enhanced Developmental English Course Instruction on Hispanic College Students' Writing and Grammar Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shehadeh, Hazar H.

    2013-01-01

    The number of academically underprepared Hispanic college students is increasing, and there is a need to adopt effective teaching tools to increase their academic achievement. Research has indicated the efficacy of web-enhanced instruction (WEI) in the classroom on student academic achievement, but a lack of research remains in regard to the…

  14. Sociocultural Perspectives on Teacher Language Awareness in Form-Focused EFL Classroom Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Luk, Jasmine C. M.; Wong, Ruth M. H.

    2010-01-01

    A teacher's language awareness (TLA) is generally believed to have a significant impact on grammar or form-focused (FonF) instruction. TLA has traditionally been assumed to be a cognitive construct. A more recent view on TLA argues for its sociocultural significance in second language learning. This paper builds on this recent view and attempts to…

  15. Effects of explicit instruction on the acquisition of students' science inquiry skills in grades 5 and 6 of primary education

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kruit, P. M.; Oostdam, R. J.; van den Berg, E.; Schuitema, J. A.

    2018-03-01

    In most primary science classes, students are taught science inquiry skills by way of learning by doing. Research shows that explicit instruction may be more effective. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit instruction on the acquisition of inquiry skills. Participants included 705 Dutch fifth and sixth graders. Students in an explicit instruction condition received an eight-week intervention of explicit instruction on inquiry skills. In the lessons of the implicit condition, all aspects of explicit instruction were absent. Students in the baseline condition followed their regular science curriculum. In a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design, two paper-and-pencil tests and three performance assessments were used to examine the acquisition and transfer of inquiry skills. Additionally, questionnaires were used to measure metacognitive skills. The results of a multilevel analysis controlling for pre-tests, general cognitive ability, age, gender and grade level indicated that explicit instruction facilitates the acquisition of science inquiry skills. Specifically on the performance assessment with an unfamiliar topic, students in the explicit condition outperformed students of both the implicit and baseline condition. Therefore, this study provides a strong argument for including an explicit teaching method for developing inquiry skills in primary science education.

  16. ESL Elementary Teachers' Use of Children's Picture Books to Initiate Explicit Instruction of Reading Comprehension Strategies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Al Khaiyali, Al Tiyb S.

    2014-01-01

    Reading comprehension instruction has been recognized as a key factor in developing any reading and literacy program. Therefore, many attempts were devoted to improve explicit comprehension strategy instruction at different school levels and fields including EFL and ESL. Despite these efforts, explicit comprehension instruction is still drought…

  17. Enhancing Core Mathematics Instruction for Students at Risk for Mathematics Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Doabler, Christian T.; Cary, Mari Strand; Jungjohann, Kathleen; Clarke, Ben; Fien, Hank; Baker, Scott; Smolkowski, Keith; Chard, David

    2012-01-01

    This paper presents eight practical guidelines that teachers can use to make core instruction more systematic and explicit for students with or at-risk for mathematics disabilities. In the paper, we use the notion of explicit and systematic instruction as a foundation for intensifying core math instruction. Explicit and systematic core instruction…

  18. Learning of grammar-like visual sequences by adults with and without language-learning disabilities.

    PubMed

    Aguilar, Jessica M; Plante, Elena

    2014-08-01

    Two studies examined learning of grammar-like visual sequences to determine whether a general deficit in statistical learning characterizes this population. Furthermore, we tested the hypothesis that difficulty in sustaining attention during the learning task might account for differences in statistical learning. In Study 1, adults with normal language (NL) or language-learning disability (LLD) were familiarized with the visual artificial grammar and then tested using items that conformed or deviated from the grammar. In Study 2, a 2nd sample of adults with NL and LLD were presented auditory word pairs with weak semantic associations (e.g., groom + clean) along with the visual learning task. Participants were instructed to attend to visual sequences and to ignore the auditory stimuli. Incidental encoding of these words would indicate reduced attention to the primary task. In Studies 1 and 2, both groups demonstrated learning and generalization of the artificial grammar. In Study 2, neither the NL nor the LLD group appeared to encode the words presented during the learning phase. The results argue against a general deficit in statistical learning for individuals with LLD and demonstrate that both NL and LLD learners can ignore extraneous auditory stimuli during visual learning.

  19. Une Experience d'enseignement programme de la grammaire francaise (An Experiment in Programed Instruction of French Grammar).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Girard, Jacques D.

    An experiment is reported involving the teaching of the agreement of the past participle without an auxiliary verb, with "avoir" and with "etre," patterned after the studies of S. Roller in 1952-53 in this area. The initial experimentation is updated and involves the use of a Skinnerian model of programed instruction. The objectives, operational…

  20. Making things explicit using instructional materials: a case study of a Singapore teacher's practice

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Leong, Yew Hoong; Cheng, Lu Pien; Toh, Wei Yeng Karen; Kaur, Berinderjeet; Toh, Tin Lam

    2018-04-01

    The phrase `make it explicit' is a common advice given to teachers. It is, however, not clear to us what this actually means when translated into classroom practice. Our review found that we are not alone: "explicit" is used in different ways in the education literature. This paper explores, through a case study of a teacher who stated "making things explicit" as an ostensible goal of his instructional practice, how the explicitation is realised in teaching mathematics. In particular, we examine how he used the instructional materials that he crafted to fulfil his goal of explicitation. We were able to uncover three strategies he used: explicit-from, explicit-within, and explicit-to.

  1. CORI: Explicit Reading Instruction to Enhance Informational Text Comprehension and Reading Engagement for Thai EFL Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vongkrachang, Salila; Chinwonno, Apasara

    2015-01-01

    The study aimed to examine the effect of explicit reading instruction as an approach to Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) framework on EFL students' informational text comprehension and engagement. The explicit reading instruction was implemented with 39 first-year Thai undergraduate students over a 10-week period. It was found that the…

  2. Explicit Grammar Rules and L2 Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Scheffler, Pawel; Cinciala, Marcin

    2011-01-01

    This article reports an empirical study that examines to what extent learners can identify and understand the grammatical structures they produce when they speak spontaneously. In the study, 20 upper-intermediate Polish learners of English were interviewed in English by the researchers. The structures used accurately by each learner were isolated…

  3. Big Ideas in Special Education: Specially Designed Instruction, High-Leverage Practices, Explicit Instruction, and Intensive Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Riccomini, Paul J.; Morano, Stephanie; Hughes, Charles A.

    2017-01-01

    It is understandable that misuse of the terms "specially designed instruction" (SDI), "high-leverage practices" (HLPs), "explicit instruction" (EI), and "intensive instruction"(II) has bred confusion among professionals, and this confusion may lead to miscommunication and misunderstandings in the field.…

  4. Effects of Explicit Instructions, Metacognition, and Motivation on Creative Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hong, Eunsook; O'Neil, Harold F.; Peng, Yun

    2016-01-01

    Effects of explicit instructions, metacognition, and intrinsic motivation on creative homework performance were examined in 303 Chinese 10th-grade students. Models that represent hypothesized relations among these constructs and trait covariates were tested using structural equation modelling. Explicit instructions geared to originality were…

  5. Implicit and Explicit Instruction of Spelling Rules

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kemper, M. J.; Verhoeven, L.; Bosman, A. M. T.

    2012-01-01

    The study aimed to compare the differential effectiveness of explicit and implicit instruction of two Dutch spelling rules. Students with and without spelling disabilities were instructed a spelling rule either implicitly or explicitly in two experiments. Effects were tested in a pretest-intervention-posttest control group design. Experiment 1…

  6. The Economy of Explicit Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kraemer, Don J.

    2007-01-01

    The risk posed by explicit instruction in composition is that the reduction of writing to stock moves and effective devices may diminish the writer's agency and guarantee reproduction of the teacher's. The advantage of explicit instruction is power: overt and recursive attention to selected strategies can help students imagine the public agency…

  7. Investigation the Relationship among Language Learning Strategies, English Self-Efficacy, and Explicit Strategy Instructions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yang, Pei-Ling; Wang, Ai-Ling

    2015-01-01

    The present study aims to investigate the relationship among EFL college learners' language learning strategies, English self-efficacy, and explicit strategy instruction from the perspectives of Social Cognitive Theory. Three constructs, namely language learning strategies, English learning self-efficacy, and explicit strategy instruction, were…

  8. Current Research in Southeast Asia.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beh, Yolanda

    1991-01-01

    Summaries of seven language-related research projects are presented from Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Topics include a lexicon of Kelabit, cognitive theory for second-language acquisition, academic writing in Filipino, cultural politics of English instruction, use of conjunctions, and communicative grammar. (LB)

  9. Explicit Instruction Elements in Core Reading Programs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Child, Angela R.

    2012-01-01

    Classroom teachers are provided instructional recommendations for teaching reading from their adopted core reading programs (CRPs). Explicit instruction elements or what is also called instructional moves, including direct explanation, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, discussion, feedback, and monitoring, were examined within CRP…

  10. One Size Fits All? Learning Conditions and Working Memory Capacity in "Ab Initio" Language Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sanz, Cristina; Lin, Hui-Ju; Lado, Beatriz; Stafford, Catherine A.; Bowden, Harriet W.

    2016-01-01

    The article summarizes results from two experimental studies (N = 23, N = 21) investigating the extent to which working memory capacity (WMC) intervenes in "ab initio" language development under two pedagogical conditions [± grammar lesson + input-based practice + explicit feedback]. The linguistic target is the use of morphosyntax to…

  11. Education, Educational Research, and the "Grammar" of Understanding: A Response to David Bridges

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smeyers, Paul

    2009-01-01

    This article is the author's response to a paper presented by David Bridges. Bridges' central question: "Is there something exclusive and superior about insider understanding which the outsider cannot understand?" is indeed not only crucial to the contexts he explicitly deals with, i.e. religious understanding, ethnographic research and…

  12. Impact of Using CALL on Iranian EFL Learners' Vocabulary Knowledge

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yunus, Melor Md; Salehi, Hadi; Amini, Mahdi

    2016-01-01

    Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) integration in EFL contexts has intensified noticeably in recent years. This integration might be in different ways and for different purposes such as vocabulary acquisition, grammar learning, phonology, writing skills, etc. More explicitly, this study is an attempt to explore the effect of using CALL on…

  13. Uncovering Settler Grammars in Curriculum

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Calderon, Dolores

    2014-01-01

    In this article, I focus on making settler colonialism explicit in education. I turn to social studies curriculum as a clear example of how settler colonialism is deeply embedded in educational knowledge production in the United States that is rooted in a dialectic of Indigenous presence and absence. I argue that the United States, and the…

  14. The conscious, the unconscious, and familiarity.

    PubMed

    Scott, Ryan B; Dienes, Zoltán

    2008-09-01

    This article examines the role of subjective familiarity in the implicit and explicit learning of artificial grammars. Experiment 1 found that objective measures of similarity (including fragment frequency and repetition structure) predicted ratings of familiarity, that familiarity ratings predicted grammaticality judgments, and that the extremity of familiarity ratings predicted confidence. Familiarity was further shown to predict judgments in the absence of confidence, hence contributing to above-chance guessing. Experiment 2 found that confidence developed as participants refined their knowledge of the distribution of familiarity and that differences in familiarity could be exploited prior to confidence developing. Experiment 3 found that familiarity was consciously exploited to make grammaticality judgments including those made without confidence and that familiarity could in some instances influence participants' grammaticality judgments apparently without their awareness. All 3 experiments found that knowledge distinct from familiarity was derived only under deliberate learning conditions. The results provide decisive evidence that familiarity is the essential source of knowledge in artificial grammar learning while also supporting a dual-process model of implicit and explicit learning. (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved.

  15. The Effects of Explicit Instruction on French-Speaking Kindergarteners' Understanding of Stories

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pesco, Diane; Devlin, Christine

    2015-01-01

    The study examines the effects of a short period of explicit instruction on the narrative comprehension of French-speaking kindergarteners, as measured by story retell and comprehension questions. A group of kindergarteners that received explicit instruction (n = 15) was compared to a control group that was exposed to the same storybooks and…

  16. The Effectiveness of Using an Explicit Language Learning Strategy-Based Instruction in Developing Secondary School Students' EFL Listening Comprehension Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Amin, Iman Abdul-Reheem; Amin, Magdy Mohammad; Aly, Mahsoub Abdul-Sadeq

    2011-01-01

    The present study aimed at exploring the effectiveness of using explicit language learning strategy-based instruction in developing secondary school students' EFL listening comprehension skills. It was hypothesized that using explicit strategy-based instruction would develop students' EFL listening comprehension skill and its sub-skills. The…

  17. Explicit pre-training instruction does not improve implicit perceptual-motor sequence learning

    PubMed Central

    Sanchez, Daniel J.; Reber, Paul J.

    2012-01-01

    Memory systems theory argues for separate neural systems supporting implicit and explicit memory in the human brain. Neuropsychological studies support this dissociation, but empirical studies of cognitively healthy participants generally observe that both kinds of memory are acquired to at least some extent, even in implicit learning tasks. A key question is whether this observation reflects parallel intact memory systems or an integrated representation of memory in healthy participants. Learning of complex tasks in which both explicit instruction and practice is used depends on both kinds of memory, and how these systems interact will be an important component of the learning process. Theories that posit an integrated, or single, memory system for both types of memory predict that explicit instruction should contribute directly to strengthening task knowledge. In contrast, if the two types of memory are independent and acquired in parallel, explicit knowledge should have no direct impact and may serve in a “scaffolding” role in complex learning. Using an implicit perceptual-motor sequence learning task, the effect of explicit pre-training instruction on skill learning and performance was assessed. Explicit pre-training instruction led to robust explicit knowledge, but sequence learning did not benefit from the contribution of pre-training sequence memorization. The lack of an instruction benefit suggests that during skill learning, implicit and explicit memory operate independently. While healthy participants will generally accrue parallel implicit and explicit knowledge in complex tasks, these types of information appear to be separately represented in the human brain consistent with multiple memory systems theory. PMID:23280147

  18. Implicit learning in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and pigeons (Columba livia).

    PubMed

    Locurto, Charles; Fox, Maura; Mazzella, Andrea

    2015-06-01

    There is considerable interest in the conditions under which human subjects learn patterned information without explicit instructions to learn that information. This form of learning, termed implicit or incidental learning, can be approximated in nonhumans by exposing subjects to patterned information but delivering reinforcement randomly, thereby not requiring the subjects to learn the information in order to be reinforced. Following acquisition, nonhuman subjects are queried as to what they have learned about the patterned information. In the present experiment, we extended the study of implicit learning in nonhumans by comparing two species, cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and pigeons (Columba livia), on an implicit learning task that used an artificial grammar to generate the patterned elements for training. We equated the conditions of training and testing as much as possible between the two species. The results indicated that both species demonstrated approximately the same magnitude of implicit learning, judged both by a random test and by choice tests between pairs of training elements. This finding suggests that the ability to extract patterned information from situations in which such learning is not demanded is of longstanding origin.

  19. Scientific Communication and the Nature of Science

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Nielsen, Kristian H.

    2013-09-01

    Communication is an important part of scientific practice and, arguably, may be seen as constitutive to scientific knowledge. Yet, often scientific communication gets cursory treatment in science studies as well as in science education. In Nature of Science (NOS), for example, communication is rarely mentioned explicitly, even though, as will be argued in this paper, scientific communication could be treated as a central component of NOS. Like other forms of communication, scientific communication is socially and symbolically differentiated. Among other things, it encompasses technical language and grammar, lab communications, and peer reviews, all of which will be treated in this paper in an attempt to engage on an empirical and theoretical level with science as communication. Seeing science as a form of communicative action supplements the epistemological view of science that is standard to both NOS and the philosophy of science. Additions to the seven NOS aspects on Lederman's (Handbook of research on science education. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, pp. 831-879, 2007) list are put forward as well as preliminary thoughts on the inclusion of scientific communication into NOS instruction.

  20. The importance of explicitly mapping instructional analogies in science education

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Asay, Loretta Johnson

    Analogies are ubiquitous during instruction in science classrooms, yet research about the effectiveness of using analogies has produced mixed results. An aspect seldom studied is a model of instruction when using analogies. The few existing models for instruction with analogies have not often been examined quantitatively. The Teaching With Analogies (TWA) model (Glynn, 1991) is one of the models frequently cited in the variety of research about analogies. The TWA model outlines steps for instruction, including the step of explicitly mapping the features of the source to the target. An experimental study was conducted to examine the effects of explicitly mapping the features of the source and target in an analogy during computer-based instruction about electrical circuits. Explicit mapping was compared to no mapping and to a control with no analogy. Participants were ninth- and tenth-grade biology students who were each randomly assigned to one of three conditions (no analogy module, analogy module, or explicitly mapped analogy module) for computer-based instruction. Subjects took a pre-test before the instruction, which was used to assign them to a level of previous knowledge about electrical circuits for analysis of any differential effects. After the instruction modules, students took a post-test about electrical circuits. Two weeks later, they took a delayed post-test. No advantage was found for explicitly mapping the analogy. Learning patterns were the same, regardless of the type of instruction. Those who knew the least about electrical circuits, based on the pre-test, made the most gains. After the two-week delay, this group maintained the largest amount of their gain. Implications exist for science education classrooms, as analogy use should be based on research about effective practices. Further studies are suggested to foster the building of research-based models for classroom instruction with analogies.

  1. Listening Skill Development through Massive Comprehensible Input.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kalivoda, Theodore B.

    Foreign language listening comprehension instruction too often relies on brief selections read aloud or sporadic teacher talk interspersed with native language (NL) utterances, which fail to provide sustained listening practice. NL is overused for grammar-related talk, reducing target language exposure, encouraging translation, and hindering…

  2. Syntactic Boundaries and the Mechanics of Written Academic English: A Workshop for Teachers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Behrens, Susan; Mercer, Cindy

    2011-01-01

    The academic demands of classroom English require students to think about language structure in ways that they are not used to. Everybody "knows" much English grammar intuitively but the academic rules themselves can be difficult to articulate. This goes for punctuation, too: errors often reflect students' lack of explicit knowledge of grammatical…

  3. Effects of Explicit Instruction on the Acquisition of Students' Science Inquiry Skills in Grades 5 and 6 of Primary Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kruit, P. M.; Oostdam, R. J.; van den Berg, E.; Schuitema, J. A.

    2018-01-01

    In most primary science classes, students are taught science inquiry skills by way of learning by doing. Research shows that explicit instruction may be more effective. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit instruction on the acquisition of inquiry skills. Participants included 705 Dutch fifth and sixth graders. Students…

  4. Effect of explicit dimension instruction on speech category learning

    PubMed Central

    Chandrasekaran, Bharath; Yi, Han-Gyol; Smayda, Kirsten E.; Maddox, W. Todd

    2015-01-01

    Learning non-native speech categories is often considered a challenging task in adulthood. This difficulty is driven by cross-language differences in weighting critical auditory dimensions that differentiate speech categories. For example, previous studies have shown that differentiating Mandarin tonal categories requires attending to dimensions related to pitch height and direction. Relative to native speakers of Mandarin, the pitch direction dimension is under-weighted by native English speakers. In the current study, we examined the effect of explicit instructions (dimension instruction) on native English speakers' Mandarin tone category learning within the framework of a dual-learning systems (DLS) model. This model predicts that successful speech category learning is initially mediated by an explicit, reflective learning system that frequently utilizes unidimensional rules, with an eventual switch to a more implicit, reflexive learning system that utilizes multidimensional rules. Participants were explicitly instructed to focus and/or ignore the pitch height dimension, the pitch direction dimension, or were given no explicit prime. Our results show that instruction instructing participants to focus on pitch direction, and instruction diverting attention away from pitch height resulted in enhanced tone categorization. Computational modeling of participant responses suggested that instruction related to pitch direction led to faster and more frequent use of multidimensional reflexive strategies, and enhanced perceptual selectivity along the previously underweighted pitch direction dimension. PMID:26542400

  5. Explicit instruction of rules interferes with visuomotor skill transfer.

    PubMed

    Tanaka, Kanji; Watanabe, Katsumi

    2017-06-01

    In the present study, we examined the effects of explicit knowledge, obtained through instruction or spontaneous detection, on the transfer of visuomotor sequence learning. In the learning session, participants learned a visuomotor sequence, via trial and error. In the transfer session, the order of the sequence was reversed from that of the learning session. Before the commencement of the transfer session, some participants received explicit instruction regarding the reversal rule (i.e., Instruction group), while the others did not receive any information and were sorted into either an Aware or Unaware group, as assessed by interview conducted after the transfer session. Participants in the Instruction and Aware groups performed with fewer errors than the Unaware group in the transfer session. The participants in the Instruction group showed slower speed than the Aware and Unaware groups in the transfer session, and the sluggishness likely persisted even in late learning. These results suggest that explicit knowledge reduces errors in visuomotor skill transfer, but may interfere with performance speed, particularly when explicit knowledge is provided, as opposed to being spontaneously discovered.

  6. Enhancing Instruction through Technology.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Greenleaf, Connie; Gee, Mary Kay

    Following an introductory section that provides a rationale for using computers in workplace literacy classes, this guide reviews six computer programs and provides activities that teachers can use with the programs in teaching workplace literacy classes. The six computer programs reviewed are as follows: "Grammar Games,""Spell It 3,""The Way…

  7. Using Picturebooks to Promote Academic Literacy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ranck-Buhr, Wendy, Ed.

    2013-01-01

    The development of academic literacy requires students to think critically about multiple text types. Picturebooks can be rich and varied resources on which to base well-designed instruction that will facilitate thinking, discussions, connections, and problem solving in multiple content areas. From the Holocaust to ecology to grammar, picturebooks…

  8. Latin Curriculum Standards. Revised.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Delaware State Dept. of Public Instruction, Dover.

    Delaware's state standards for the Latin curriculum in the public schools are presented. An introductory section outlines the goals of the Latin program for reading, cultural awareness, grammar, writing, and oral language and briefly discusses the philosophy of and approaches to Latin instruction in elementary and middle schools. Three subsequent…

  9. Teaching French via Driver Education.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Berwald, Jean-Pierre

    1980-01-01

    Driver instruction through the medium of a foreign language is useful in teaching vocabulary, grammar, and culture. The maps, driving manuals, and cars stimulate discussion and communication. Course techniques can include Asher's concept of Total Physical Response wherein students act in response to commands in the foreign language. (PMJ)

  10. Revision Planned for the Cambridge Latin Course.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sebesta, Judith Lynn

    1980-01-01

    Summarizes a discussion on the revision of the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC) held during the 1980 ACL Institute at the University of New Hampshire by CLC users and Cambridge University Press representatives. Emphasizes suggestions by users on grammar instruction strategies better suited to American students' needs. (MES)

  11. La Presse ecrite pas a pas (The Printed Media, Step by Step).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nott, David

    1985-01-01

    Argues that effective use of the print media in French instruction requires considerable preparation and participation on the teacher's part. A variety of exercises for thematic and lexical awareness, comprehension, guided production, autonomous production, simulation, grammar development, and other objectives are suggested. (MSE)

  12. Beginning English: Resource Materials To Accompany the Instructional Guide.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brower, Lynne

    Resource materials for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers are presented in this volume. Eighteen modules, each presented weekly, include personal and social/cultural topics as well as grammar lessons. They cover the following information: personal information; compliments, congratulations, thanking; basic emotions; nationality words;…

  13. Exploring Mathematics Problems Prepares Children to Learn from Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    DeCaro, Marci S.; Rittle-Johnson, Bethany

    2012-01-01

    Both exploration and explicit instruction are thought to benefit learning in many ways, but much less is known about how the two can be combined. We tested the hypothesis that engaging in exploratory activities prior to receiving explicit instruction better prepares children to learn from the instruction. Children (159 second- to fourth-grade…

  14. A Comment on "The Limited Effect of Explicit Instruction on Phrasal Verbs" by Julina A. Magnusson and C. Ray Graham

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Krashen, Stephen

    2012-01-01

    In previous reviews of studies comparing explicit and implicit instruction (Krashen, 1981, 1982, 1999, 2003), the author argued that explicit instruction will show a positive effect only when the following conditions for the use of the conscious Monitor are met: (1) the acquirer consciously knows the rule or the meaning of the item--that is, has…

  15. A Book for Two

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Van Keer, Hilde; Vanderlinde, Ruben

    2013-01-01

    To close the gap between reading research and the reality of instruction, the authors developed a reading comprehension approach for elementary school, aiming at explicit instruction and practice of reading comprehension strategies. Their approach encompasses two complementary cornerstones: explicit instruction in reading strategies and creating…

  16. Teaching the Process Approach in Poland.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Carter, Ronnie D.

    Members of the Polish faculty at the English Institute (Poland) primarily use English as a second language (ESL) techniques to teach writing, with grammar and idiom drills, and little writing beyond the sentence level. An American professor, on the other hand, used a process approach to teach writing by providing specific instructions about…

  17. An Evaluation of an Automated Approach to Concept-Based Grammar Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lyddon, Paul A.

    2012-01-01

    Acquiring sufficient linguistic proficiency to perform competently in academic and professional contexts generally requires substantial study time beyond what most language programs can offer in the classroom. As such, teachers and students alike would benefit considerably from high quality self-access materials promoting independent learning out…

  18. Understanding Written Corrective Feedback in Second-Language Grammar Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wagner, Jason Paul; Wulf, Douglas J.

    2016-01-01

    Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) is used extensively in second-language (L2) writing classrooms despite controversy over its effectiveness. This study examines indirect WCF, an instructional procedure that flags L2 students' errors with editing symbols that guide their corrections. WCF practitioners assume that this guidance will lead to…

  19. Language and Related Approaches to the Writing Process.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Seesholtz, Melvin C.

    Providing instruction in language theory is an innovative technique for use in remedial and other composition courses in the two-year college. Such innovations provide intellectually stimulating material to students who lose interest when confronted with traditional grammar and composition. Students are acquainted with American Edited English in…

  20. La formacion de profesores de lengua materna (Native Language Teachers' Education).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Martinez Chacon, Concepcion Elena

    1980-01-01

    Discusses the goals of native language instruction advocating a broadening of horizons, away from traditional grammar and literature teaching, and towards culturally based communication skills. Sociocultural awareness is stressed as the fundamental component of a teacher's background and the basis for mastering the relevant aspects of…

  1. Lernen Wir Deutsch!: Part 2, German.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dade County Public Schools, Miami, FL.

    Instructional objectives of the Dade County Public Schools Quinmester Program in German for use with "Lernen Wir Deutsch: Part 2" focus on development of basic skills through the use of short dialogues and structured exercises. The grammar of the course includes the study of nouns, pronouns, and verbs. Possessive determiners are…

  2. First Language Composition Pedagogy in the Second Language Classroom: A Reassesment.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ross, Steven; And Others

    1988-01-01

    Evaluated the effectiveness of using native language (Japanese) based writing methods in English as a second language (ESL) classrooms. The methods compared included sentence combining and structural grammar instruction with journal writing, controlled composition writing with feedback on surface error, and peer reformulation. Journal writing, but…

  3. La Gramatica Ingles: Libro de Trabajo (English Grammar: Workbook).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rogers, Paul

    This student workbook is designed for native Spanish-speaking learners of English as a second language, and presents instruction in basic English grammatical constructions and usage, as well as some vocabulary development. Lessons include basic descriptions of the constructions and rules in applying them, and a brief exercise reinforcing the…

  4. Ann pale kreyol: An Introductory Course in Haitian Creole.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Valdman, Albert

    This set of instructional materials is designed to provide beginning and intermediate learners of Haitian Creole with a foundation in the phonology, grammar, and vocabulary of the language. It is intended for use by individuals wanting to communicate with monolingual Haitians. A revision of earlier materials, this set emphasizes authentic…

  5. A Program for Improving Undergraduate Psychology Students' Basic Writing Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fallahi, Carolyn R.; Wood, Rebecca M.; Austad, Carol Shaw; Fallahi, Hamid

    2006-01-01

    We examined the effects of in-class writing instruction, practice, peer review, and feedback on writing skills of undergraduates enrolled in a general psychology course. We rated writing for grammar, writing style, mechanics, and American Psychological Association referencing style. Significant differences emerged on the 4 writing skill domains (p…

  6. The Role of Feedback in Implicit and Explicit Artificial Grammar Learning: A Comparison between Dyslexic and Non-Dyslexic Adults

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schiff, Rachel; Sasson, Ayelet; Star, Galit; Kahta, Shani

    2017-01-01

    The importance of feedback for learning has been firmly established over the past few decades. The question of whether feedback plays a significant role in the statistical learning abilities of adults with dyslexia, however, is currently unresolved. Here, we examined the role of feedback in grammaticality judgment, type of structural knowledge,…

  7. Timed and Untimed Grammaticality Judgments Measure Distinct Types of Knowledge: Evidence from Eye-Movement Patterns

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Godfroid, Aline; Loewen, Shawn; Jung, Sehoon; Park, Ji-Hyun; Gass, Susan; Ellis, Rod

    2015-01-01

    Grammaticality judgment tests (GJTs) have been used to elicit data reflecting second language (L2) speakers' knowledge of L2 grammar. However, the exact constructs measured by GJTs, whether primarily implicit or explicit knowledge, are disputed and have been argued to differ depending on test-related variables (i.e., time pressure and item…

  8. The growth of language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation.

    PubMed

    Yang, Charles; Crain, Stephen; Berwick, Robert C; Chomsky, Noam; Bolhuis, Johan J

    2017-10-01

    Human infants develop language remarkably rapidly and without overt instruction. We argue that the distinctive ontogenesis of child language arises from the interplay of three factors: domain-specific principles of language (Universal Grammar), external experience, and properties of non-linguistic domains of cognition including general learning mechanisms and principles of efficient computation. We review developmental evidence that children make use of hierarchically composed structures ('Merge') from the earliest stages and at all levels of linguistic organization. At the same time, longitudinal trajectories of development show sensitivity to the quantity of specific patterns in the input, which suggests the use of probabilistic processes as well as inductive learning mechanisms that are suitable for the psychological constraints on language acquisition. By considering the place of language in human biology and evolution, we propose an approach that integrates principles from Universal Grammar and constraints from other domains of cognition. We outline some initial results of this approach as well as challenges for future research. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Improve Student Understanding Ability Through Gamification in Instructional Media Based Explicit Instruction

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Firdausi, N.; Prabawa, H. W.; Sutarno, H.

    2017-02-01

    In an effort to maximize a student’s academic growth, one of the tools available to educators is the explicit instruction. Explicit instruction is marked by a series of support or scaffold, where the students will be guided through the learning process with a clear statement of purpose and a reason for learning new skills, a clear explanation and demonstration of learning targets, supported and practiced with independent feedback until mastery has been achieved. The technology development trend of todays, requires an adjustment in the development of learning object that supports the achievement of explicit instruction targets. This is where the gamification position is. In the role as a pedagogical strategy, the use of gamification preformance study class is still relatively new. Gamification not only use the game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts, but also to empower and engage learners with the ability of motivation on learning approach and maintains a relaxed atmosphere. With using Reseach and Development methods, this paper presents the integration of technology (which in this case using the concept of gamification) in explicit instruction settings and the impact on the improvement of students’ understanding.

  10. Effective Reading and Writing Instruction: A Focus on Modeling

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Regan, Kelley; Berkeley, Sheri

    2012-01-01

    When providing effective reading and writing instruction, teachers need to provide explicit modeling. Modeling is particularly important when teaching students to use cognitive learning strategies. Examples of how teachers can provide specific, explicit, and flexible instructional modeling is presented in the context of two evidence-based…

  11. Using Explicit Instruction for African American Male Students in Suburban Georgia: A Qualitative Case Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harris, Dira D.

    2017-01-01

    Growing gaps in reading and vocabulary achievement between minority and majority student subgroups have led to an intense focus on implementing effective classroom instructional strategies. Prior research concerning teachers' perceptions of using explicit instructional strategies to teach vocabulary to underperforming students has been…

  12. Relationships of Teachers' Language and Explicit Vocabulary Instruction to Students' Vocabulary Growth in Kindergarten

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bowne, Jocelyn Bonnes; Yoshikawa, Hirokazu; Snow, Catherine E.

    2017-01-01

    This study evaluates the relationships between aspects of Chilean teachers' explicit vocabulary instruction and students' vocabulary development in kindergarten. Classroom videotapes of whole-class instruction gathered during a randomized experimental evaluation of a coaching-based professional development program were analyzed. The amount of…

  13. Feasibility of Explicit Instruction in Adult Basic Education: Instructor-Learner Interaction Patterns

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mellard, Daryl; Scanlon, David

    2006-01-01

    A strategic instruction model introduced into adult basic education classrooms yields insight into the feasibility of using direct and explicit instruction with adults with learning disabilities or other cognitive barriers to learning. Ecobehavioral assessment was used to describe and compare instructor-learner interaction patterns during learning…

  14. The Effect of Explicit Instruction on Strategic Reading in a Literacy Methods Course

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Iwai, Yuko

    2016-01-01

    This study examined the impact of explicit instruction on metacognitive reading strategies among 18 K-8 teacher candidates in a literacy methods course. They received weekly explicit intervention about these strategies over one semester. Collected data included pre- and post-scores of the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory…

  15. Teacher's Manual [German, Level I]; An Assessment of Three Foreign Language Teaching Strategies. Cooperative Research Project.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pennsylvania State Dept. of Public Instruction, Harrisburg.

    Teaching practices appropriate to 10 different treatments of secondary school beginning German instruction are outlined and discussed. Treatments vary by (1) strategy (traditional; audiolingual or functional skills; and modified audiolingual or functional skills enriched with grammar), (2) type of laboratory (audio passive or tape recorder, audio…

  16. Teacher's Manual [French, Level I]: An Assessment of Three Foreign Language Teaching Strategies. Cooperative Research Project.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pennsylvania State Dept. of Public Instruction, Harrisburg.

    Teaching practices appropriate to 11 different treatments of secondary school beginning French instruction are outlined and discussed. Treatments vary by (1) strategy (traditional; audiolingual or functional skills; and modified audiolingual or functional skills enriched with grammar), (2) type of laboratory (audio passive or tape recorder; audio…

  17. Techniques for Using Humor and Fun in the Language Arts Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Minchew, Sue S.; Hopper, Peggy F.

    2008-01-01

    The authors, former middle and high school English teachers, review the rationale for using humor and fun in the classroom and provide detailed descriptions for teaching practices and activities that confer enjoyment and learning for language arts students. Although fun activities, these methods foster vocabulary development, grammar instruction,…

  18. Hiligaynon Lessons. PALI Language Texts: Philippines.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Motus, Cecile L.

    A collection of 54 lessons in Hiligaynon, one of the major languages of the Philippines, is divided into 12 units, each lesson intended for about 4 to 5 hours of classroom instruction. A brief grammar summary introduces each unit. A structural content note begins each lesson within the units, followed by microdialogues (two to four lines)…

  19. Enfocando la competencia linguistica: concienciacion gramatical (Focusing on Linguistic Competence: Grammatical Consciousness).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Melles, Gavin

    1997-01-01

    Argues that communicative competence in Spanish as a second language can not be taught without giving attention to the grammatical component of language. Compares aspects of the traditional and communicative approaches to language teaching, refers to theory on grammar instruction, and offers examples of classroom activities supporting the learning…

  20. Reading & Writing Workshop. The Fantastic Harry Potter.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lockman, Darcy

    2000-01-01

    Discusses the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, explaining how to use it to enhance reading and writing instruction. The article presents a brief interview with J.K. Rowling, a Harry Potter time line, and ideas for working on writing and editing paragraphs, creating dynamic dialogue, and fixing grammar and punctuation. Other fantasy books are…

  1. World of Wordcraft: Foreign Language Grammar and Composition Taught as a Term-Long Role-Playing Game

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gellar-Goad, T. H. M.

    2015-01-01

    This article outlines an innovative approach to the instruction of foreign languages: a term-long role-playing game in the style of tabletop role-playing games such as "Dungeons & Dragons." Students adopt personas, avatars, or "player characters" and take them through adventures, exploration, puzzles, and fights with…

  2. Utiliser la presse ecrite pour construire son cours (Using the Print Media for Constructing a Course).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Canto, Helene

    1991-01-01

    Ways in which the French teacher can use print media for language skill development are offered. Classroom techniques for exploiting these texts for instruction in grammar, reading comprehension, writing, and oral expression are presented, including ideas for selecting a variety of authentic materials. (MSE)

  3. Transformational Grammar and Psycholinguistics as Applied to Teaching Comprehension of German. Final Report.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reeds, James A.

    The relevance to elementary foreign language instruction of certain findings of child language development (native language) and the psychology of language acquisition is examined. A set of premises is proposed for a new scheme for the teaching of German based on these findings, namely, that comprehension precedes production, that language…

  4. Indian Languages Bibliography of Grammars, Dictionaries and Teaching Materials.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pattanayak, D. P., Comp.

    This bibliography of Indian languages is designed to assist students, teachers, librarians, and researchers in identifying instructional works to serve the needs of those teaching and learning Indian languages, and to promote the study of these languages. It was compiled with the Indian language situation in mind, in which the superficial…

  5. The Effects of Supplemental Sentence-Level Instruction for Fourth-Grade Students Identified as Struggling Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Furey, William M.; Marcotte, Amanda M.; Wells, Craig S.; Hintze, John M.

    2017-01-01

    The Language and Writing strands of the Common Core State Standards place a heavy emphasis on sentence-level conventions including syntax/grammar and mechanics. Interventions targeting these foundational skills are necessary to support struggling writers, as poorly developed sentence construction skills inhibit more complex writing tasks. This…

  6. Silly Stories

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reading Teacher, 2011

    2011-01-01

    There are many different kinds of words in the English language. Instruction in grammar and syntax helps young writers sort out when to use a plural or singular noun, or when to use an apostrophe. Silly Stories, a variation of a popular party game, reinforces the importance of word choice and conventions in writing. This article describes a…

  7. Chinese-Cantonese Basic Course.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Defense Language Inst., Washington, DC.

    This nine-volume basic course in Cantonese Chinese is designed for 47 weeks of intense audiolingual instruction. The first book of the series introduces the pronunciation, with emphasis on the tone system, and the basic aspects of the grammar. Also introduced in this volume is the romanization system used in this series (the U.S. Army Language…

  8. A Practical Guide to the Teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rivers, Wilga M.; Temperley, Mary S.

    This text, designed for future teachers of English as a second or foreign language, considers language teaching methodology in the light of recent research in psychology and linguistics. Many aspects of language learning that contribute to effective language use are discussed: oral communication, pronunciation, grammar instruction, listening…

  9. The Effects of Explicit-Strategy and Whole-Language Instruction on Students' Spelling Ability.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Butyniec-Thomas, Jean; Woloshyn, Vera E.

    1997-01-01

    Whether explicit-strategy instruction combined with whole-language instruction would improve third graders' spelling more than using either approach alone was studied with 37 students. Findings suggest that young children learn to spell best when they are taught a repertoire of effective strategies in a meaningful context. (SLD)

  10. A Conceptual Model for the Design and Delivery of Explicit Thinking Skills Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kassem, Cherrie L.

    2005-01-01

    Developing student thinking skills is an important goal for most educators. However, due to time constraints and weighty content standards, thinking skills instruction is often embedded in subject matter, implicit and incidental. For best results, thinking skills instruction requires a systematic design and explicit teaching strategies. The…

  11. Using Embedded Computer-Assisted Explicit Instruction to Teach Science to Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smith, Bethany R.; Spooner, Fred; Wood, Charles L.

    2013-01-01

    For students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and intellectual disability, the need for scientific literacy is further complicated by the need for individualized instruction necessary to teach new skills, especially when those skills are academic. This study investigated the effects of embedded, computer-assisted explicit instruction to teach…

  12. Explicit Instruction in Core Reading Programs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reutzel, D. Ray; Child, Angela; Jones, Cindy D.; Clark, Sarah K.

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to conduct a content analysis of the types and occurrences of explicit instructional moves recommended for teaching five essentials of effective reading instruction in grades 1, 3, and 5 core reading program teachers' editions in five widely marketed core reading programs. Guided practice was the most frequently…

  13. Iranian Pre-University Student's Retention of Collocations: Implicit Exposure or Explicit Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gheisari, Nouzar; Yousofi, Nouroldin

    2016-01-01

    The effectiveness of different teaching methods of collocational expressions in ESL/EFL contexts of education has been a point of debate for more than two decades, with some believing in explicit and the others in implicit instruction of collocations. In this regard, the present study aimed at finding about which kind of instruction is more…

  14. The Role of Prosody and Explicit Instruction in Processing Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Henry, Nick; Jackson, Carrie N.; Dimidio, Jack

    2017-01-01

    This study investigates the role of prosodic cues and explicit information (EI) in the acquisition of German accusative case markers. We compared 4 groups of 3rd-semester learners (low intermediate level) who completed 1 of 4 Processing Instruction (PI) treatments that manipulated the presence or absence of EI and focused prosody. The results…

  15. Teaching Formulaic Sequences in an English-Language Class: The Effects of Explicit Instruction versus Coursebook Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Le-Thi, Duyen; Rodgers, Michael P. H.; Pellicer-Sánchez, Ana

    2017-01-01

    This study investigates the relative effectiveness of different teaching approaches on the learning of formulaic sequences. Three comparisons were made in this study: the effects of explicit teaching of formulaic sequences versus teaching embedded in traditional coursebook instruction, the effects of the degree of salience of the sequences in the…

  16. The relationship between the structural mere exposure effect and the implicit learning process.

    PubMed

    Newell, B R; Bright, J E

    2001-11-01

    Three experiments are reported that investigate the relationship between the structural mere exposure effect (SMEE) and implicit learning in an artificial grammar task. Subjects were presented with stimuli generated from a finite-state grammar and were asked to memorize them. In a subsequent test phase subjects were required first to rate how much they liked novel items, and second whether or not they thought items conformed to the rules of the grammar. A small but consistent effect of grammaticality was found on subjects' liking ratings (a "structural mere exposure effect") in all three experiments, but only when encoding and testing conditions were consistent. A change in the surface representation of stimuli between encoding and test (Experiment 1), memorizing fragments of items and being tested on whole items (Experiment 2), and a mismatch of processing operations between encoding and test (Experiment 3) all removed the SMEE. In contrast, the effect of grammaticality on rule judgements remained intact in the face of all three manipulations. It is suggested that rule judgements reflect attempts to explicitly recall information about training items, whereas the SMEE can be explained in terms of an attribution of processing fluency.

  17. Mathematical knowledge for teaching: Making the tacit more explicit in mathematics teacher education

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Abdullah, Mohd Faizal Nizam Lee; Vimalanandan, Lena

    2017-05-01

    Teaching practice during school based experiences, afford an opportunity for pre service teachers to put into practice their knowledge for teaching mathematics. Like all knowledge, Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) is held in both tacit and explicit form, making it especially difficult to study and map during instruction. This study investigates the tacit and explicit nature of MKT held by pre service teachers in a Malaysian Teacher Education Program and how it impacts the Mathematical Quality of their instruction (MQI). This study of three mathematics pre-service teachers (PSTs), utilised videos of mathematics lessons, reflective debriefs and interviews. The findings suggest that factors such as reflecting, peer-sharing, conferencing with mentors and observing support in making tacit knowledge more explicit during planning and instruction. Implications for preparation of mathematics teachers capable of high Mathematical Quality of Instruction are also discussed.

  18. The Effects of an Integrated Reading Comprehension Strategy: A Culturally Responsive Teaching Approach for Fifth-Grade Students' Reading Comprehension

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bui, Yvonne N.; Fagan, Yvette M.

    2013-01-01

    The study evaluated the effects of the Integrated Reading Comprehension Strategy on two levels. The Integrated Reading Comprehension Strategy integrated story grammar instruction and story maps, prior knowledge and prediction method, and word webs through a culturally responsive teaching framework; the Integrated Reading Comprehension Strategy…

  19. And Gladly Teche: Notes on Instructing the Natives in the Native Tongue.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Laird, Charlton

    Twenty-three lectures by Charlton Laird, read at institutes and conventions over the past 25 years, deal with such areas in language, literature, and composition as "Trouble in Linguistic Paradise;""A Simpleminded Look at Grammar and Language;""Goldilocks and the Three or More Rhetorics;""More About Creative Writing;""The Case for Casebooks: One…

  20. Instructed Vision: Navigating Grammatical Rules by Using Landmarks for Linguistic Structures in Corrective Feedback Sequences

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Majlesi, Ali Reza

    2018-01-01

    This study aims to show how multimodality, that is, the mobilization of various communicative resources in social actions (Mondada, 2016), can be used to teach grammar. Drawing on ethnomethodological conversation analysis (Sacks, 1992), the article provides a detailed analysis of 2 corrective feedback sequences in a Swedish-as-a-second-language…

  1. Improving Pronunciation Instruction in the Second Language Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Counselman, David

    2010-01-01

    Researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) have increasingly discussed the role that attention plays in the learning of a second language (L2). This discussion has led to research on proposed pedagogical strategies aimed at directing L2 learners' attention to aspects of the L2 grammar that are difficult to learn or acquire. Research on one…

  2. Following the Heart or the Crowd: Epistemological Beliefs and Actual Practices of In-Service Language Teachers in Taiwan

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sun, Yu-Chih

    2017-01-01

    The study aims to explore in-service teachers' epistemological beliefs about the following five critical paradigms in second language education and their corresponding practices: (1) inductive/deductive grammar instruction, (2) intensive/extensive reading, (3) looking up unknown words in the dictionary/guessing from context, (4) focusing on…

  3. An Essay on Pedagogy by Mikhail M. Bakhtin

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bazerman, Charles

    2005-01-01

    This is an extended summary of a pedagogic essay by Mikhail M. Bakhtin on writing style, titled "Dialogic Origin and Dialogic Pedagogy of Grammar: Stylistics as Part of Russian Language Instruction in Secondary School." In this essay, written in spring 1945 while Bakhtin was a secondary school teacher of Russian language arts, he argues that every…

  4. Is Grammar Instruction Beneficial for Heritage Language Learners? Dative Case Marking in Spanish

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Montrul, Silvina; Bowles, Melissa

    2010-01-01

    Spanish heritage speakers have been shown to have incomplete knowledge of dative case marking with both animate direct objects (also known as differential object marking (DOM) or "a-personal") and dative experiencers with "gustar"-psych verbs in oral and written modes (Montrul, 2004; Montrul & Bowles, in press). In general, Spanish objects that…

  5. Improving Students' Expertise and Attitudes during the Postwriting Stage of the Writing Process through Collaborative Revision.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wells, Mary C.

    A practicum addressed the problem of students' lack of fluency in standard English despite the traditional paradigm for formal grammar instruction and the emphasis on process writing in most English classrooms. Nineteen (English 2) high school students participated in peer editing groups in a collaborative learning environment. The solution…

  6. Integrating Teaching Practice with Developmental Norms: The Case of Phonological Teaching in L2

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wong, Richard Kwok-Shing; MacWhinney, Brian

    2009-01-01

    This paper highlights the crucial role of phonological instruction in early second language English learning. Although older learners can acquire grammar and vocabulary efficiently, younger learners appear to have a greater facility with the learning of sounds. Thus, it makes good sense to focus on articulatory skills for these early learners. By…

  7. The Effects of Corrective Feedback on Chinese Learners' Writing Accuracy: A Quantitative Analysis in an EFL Context

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Xin

    2017-01-01

    Scholars debate whether corrective feedback contributes to improving L2 learners' grammatical accuracy in writing performance. Some researchers take a stance on the ineffectiveness of corrective feedback based on the impracticality of providing detailed corrective feedback for all L2 learners and detached grammar instruction in language…

  8. Teaching French Transformational Grammar by Means of Computer-Generated Video-Tapes.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Adler, Alfred; Thomas, Jean Jacques

    This paper describes a pilot program in an integrated media presentation of foreign languages and the production and usage of seven computer-generated video tapes which demonstrate various aspects of French syntax. This instructional set could form the basis for CAI lessons in which the student is presented images identical to those on the video…

  9. Measuring the Impact of Language-Learning Software on Test Performance of Chinese Learners of English

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nicholes, Justin

    2016-01-01

    This classroom quasi-experiment aimed to learn if and to what degree supplementing classroom instruction with Rosetta Stone (RS), Tell Me More (TMM), Memrise (MEM), or ESL WOW (WOW) impacted high-stakes English test performance in areas of university-level writing, reading, speaking, listening, and grammar. Seventy-eight (N = 78) Chinese learners…

  10. Transfer and Transition in the SLA of Aspect: A Bidirectional Study of Learners of English and Japanese

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gabriele, Alison

    2009-01-01

    Previous studies have shown that it is particularly difficult for second language (L2) learners to overcome the effects of transfer when they need to unlearn specific aspects of the native language in the absence of explicit input that indicates which properties of the first language (L1) are ruled out by the L2 grammar (Inagaki, 2001;…

  11. Second-language instinct and instruction effects: nature and nurture in second-language acquisition.

    PubMed

    Yusa, Noriaki; Koizumi, Masatoshi; Kim, Jungho; Kimura, Naoki; Uchida, Shinya; Yokoyama, Satoru; Miura, Naoki; Kawashima, Ryuta; Hagiwara, Hiroko

    2011-10-01

    Adults seem to have greater difficulties than children in acquiring a second language (L2) because of the alleged "window of opportunity" around puberty. Postpuberty Japanese participants learned a new English rule with simplex sentences during one month of instruction, and then they were tested on "uninstructed complex sentences" as well as "instructed simplex sentences." The behavioral data show that they can acquire more knowledge than is instructed, suggesting the interweaving of nature (universal principles of grammar, UG) and nurture (instruction) in L2 acquisition. The comparison in the "uninstructed complex sentences" between post-instruction and pre-instruction using functional magnetic resonance imaging reveals a significant activation in Broca's area. Thus, this study provides new insight into Broca's area, where nature and nurture cooperate to produce L2 learners' rich linguistic knowledge. It also shows neural plasticity of adult L2 acquisition, arguing against a critical period hypothesis, at least in the domain of UG.

  12. Increased Specificity of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition Matrix Reasoning Test Instructions and Time Limits

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Callens, Andy M.; Atchison, Timothy B.; Engler, Rachel R.

    2009-01-01

    Instructions for the Matrix Reasoning Test (MRT) of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition were modified by explicitly stating that the subtest was untimed or that a per-item time limit would be imposed. The MRT was administered within one of four conditions: with (a) standard administration instructions, (b) explicit instructions…

  13. Use of Explicit Instruction and Double-Dosing to Teach Ratios, Proportions, and Percentages to At-Risk Middle School Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Piper, Lisa; Marchand-Martella, Nancy; Martella, Ronald

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this action research was to determine the level of improvement of middle school students who were low performers in a mathematics class (N = 8) and who received "explicit instruction" with "double dosing" compared to their peer group who received normal instruction (N = 49). Results showed that at-risk…

  14. The Effects of Explicit Instruction on the Reading Performance of Adolescent English Language Learners with Intellectual Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reed, Deborah K.

    2013-01-01

    This study sought to determine the effects of explicit phonics instruction and sight word instruction on the letter-sound identification and word reading of 13- to 15-year-old English language learners in the eighth grade who were identified as having intellectual disabilities (ID). Using a randomized single-subject design, four Hispanic students…

  15. The Effectiveness of Guided Induction versus Deductive Instruction on the Development of Complex Spanish "Gustar" Structures: An Analysis of Learning Outcomes and Processes

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cerezo, Luis; Caras, Allison; Leow, Ronald P.

    2016-01-01

    Meta-analytic research suggests an edge of explicit over implicit instruction for the development of complex L2 grammatical structures, but the jury is still out as to which type of explicit instruction--"deductive" or "inductive," where rules are respectively provided or elicited--proves more effective. Avoiding this…

  16. Awakening the Scientist Inside: Global Climate Change and the Nature of Science in an Elementary Science Methods Course

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Matkins, Juanita Jo; Bell, Randy L.

    2007-04-01

    This investigation assessed the impact of situating explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction within the issues surrounding global climate change and global warming (GCC/GW). Participants in the study were 15 preservice elementary teachers enrolled in a science methods course. The instructional intervention included explicit NOS instruction combined with explicit GCC/GW instruction situated within the normal elementary science methods curriculum. Participants’ conceptions of NOS and GCC/GW were assessed with pre- and postadministrations of open-ended questionnaires and interviews. Results indicated that participants’ conceptions of NOS and GCC/GW improved over the course of the semester. Furthermore, participants were able to apply their conceptions to decision making about socioscientific issues. The results provide support for context-based NOS instruction in an elementary science methods course.

  17. The Impact of Explicit, Self-Regulatory Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction on the Reading-Specific Self-Efficacy, Attributions, and Affect of Students with Reading Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nelson, Jason M.; Manset-Williamson, Genevieve

    2006-01-01

    We compared a reading intervention that consisted of explicit, self-regulatory strategy instruction to a strategy intervention that was less explicit to determine the impact on the reading-specific self-efficacy, attributions, and affect of students with reading disabilities (RD). Participants included 20 students with RD who were entering grades…

  18. Explicit Nature of Science and Argumentation Instruction in the Context of Socioscientific Issues: An Effect on Student Learning and Transfer

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Khishfe, Rola

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of the study was two-fold: to (a) investigate the influence of explicit nature of science (NOS) and explicit argumentation instruction in the context of a socioscientific issue on the argumentation skills and NOS understandings of students, and (b) explore the transfer of students' NOS understandings and argumentation skills learned in…

  19. Explicit Vocabulary Instruction in an English Content-Area Course with University Student Teachers: When Comprehensible Input Needs to Be Comprehended

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dimas, Héctor Manuel Serna

    2011-01-01

    This action research study explores explicit vocabulary instruction in an L2 (English) content-area course with a group of university student teachers. The study reviews several positions on the treatment of vocabulary in L2 contexts. The researcher takes up the teaching of explicit vocabulary through class activities and the students' completion…

  20. Re-examining the effects of verbal instructional type on early stage motor learning.

    PubMed

    Bobrownicki, Ray; MacPherson, Alan C; Coleman, Simon G S; Collins, Dave; Sproule, John

    2015-12-01

    The present study investigated the differential effects of analogy and explicit instructions on early stage motor learning and movement in a modified high jump task. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: analogy, explicit light (reduced informational load), or traditional explicit (large informational load). During the two-day learning phase, participants learned a novel high jump technique based on the 'scissors' style using the instructions for their respective conditions. For the single-day testing phase, participants completed both a retention test and task-relevant pressure test, the latter of which featured a rising high-jump-bar pressure manipulation. Although analogy learners demonstrated slightly more efficient technique and reported fewer technical rules on average, the differences between the conditions were not statistically significant. There were, however, significant differences in joint variability with respect to instructional type, as variability was lowest for the analogy condition during both the learning and testing phases, and as a function of block, as joint variability decreased for all conditions during the learning phase. Findings suggest that reducing the informational volume of explicit instructions may mitigate the deleterious effects on performance previously associated with explicit learning in the literature. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Explicit Instruction in Phonemic Awareness and Phonemically Based Decoding Skills as an Intervention Strategy for Struggling Readers in Whole Language Classrooms

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ryder, Janice F.; Tunmer, William E.; Greaney, Keith T.

    2008-01-01

    The aim of this study was to determine whether explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonemically based decoding skills would be an effective intervention strategy for children with early reading difficulties in a whole language instructional environment. Twenty-four 6- and 7-year-old struggling readers were randomly assigned to an…

  2. Reader for Advanced Spoken Tamil, Parts 1 and 2.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schiffman, Harold F.

    Part 1 of this reader consists of transcriptions of five Tamil radio plays, with exercises, notes, and discussion. Part 2 is a synopsis grammar and a glossary. Both are intended for advanced students of Tamil who have had at least two years of instruction in the spoken language at the college level. The materials have been tested in classroom use…

  3. Au Courant: Teaching French Vocabulary and Culture Using the Mass Media. Language in Education: Theory and Practice 65.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Berwald, Jean-Pierre

    This volume outlines potential uses of many of the topics associated with daily newspapers, music, film, theater, and sports for vocabulary development and grammar review in French language instruction. The emphasis is on the advantage of using authentic, current materials prepared for the general public but somewhat familiar to students. The…

  4. Fiches pratiques: "Comme ils disent..."; Trop d'enfants; Touche pas a mon pote!; Import/export (Practical Ideas: "As They Say..."; Too Many Children; Don't Touch My Pal!).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bourdet, Jean-Francois; And Others

    1993-01-01

    Four classroom activities for French instruction are described, including an exercise in contextual grammar, lessons in interpretation of charts and graphs, an exercise in extracting cultural information from text, and practice in calculating in French and applying basic economic concepts. (MSE)

  5. Aprendamos juntos: Cuaderno de trabajo. Segunda parte (Let's Learn Together: Workbook. Part Two).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Instituto Nacional para la Educacion de los Adultos, Mexico City (Mexico).

    This workbook is part of a Mexican series of instructional materials designed for Spanish speaking adults who are in the process of becoming literate or have recently become literate in their native language. This workbook provides an introduction to grammar. It is designed to help students learn to write words, complete sentences, and paragraphs.…

  6. Understanding Task-in-Process through the Lens of Laughter: Activity Designs, Instructional Materials, Learner Orientations, and Interpersonal Relationships

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hasegawa, Atsushi

    2018-01-01

    Using the framework of conversation analysis, this study investigated the interactional workings of laughter in task-based interactions. The analysis was drawn from 160 cases of pair work interactions, collected in 2nd-semester Japanese-as-a-foreign-language classrooms. The pair work activities examined in this study are mostly grammar-focused,…

  7. The Use of Internet Resources and Browser-Based Virtual Worlds in Teaching Grammar

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kruk, Mariusz

    2014-01-01

    Online virtual worlds are becoming important tools in foreign/second language instruction in view of the fact that they enhance learner motivation, promote autonomy and social presence in a 3D environment. Virtual worlds are a type of reality in which students can meet and communicate with other learners in the target language using text, voice or…

  8. Teaching Vocabulary in EFL Classrooms: A Tried-Out Technique

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    A'lipour, Javad; Ketabi, Saeed

    2010-01-01

    One of the complaints made by EFL learners is that when it comes to the instruction of the linguistic sub-skills, i.e., grammar and vocabulary, the class tends to become boring. In many classes, there is as of yet no collaborative activities to facilitate the learning of these two important sub-skills. Most of EFL classes are reminiscent of the…

  9. Quels outils pour l'analyse linguistique ou les prealables d'un enseignement de la grammaire? (What Tools for Linguistic Analysis or Preliminaries for Grammar Instruction?)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Darot, Mireille

    1983-01-01

    The usefulness of classifications within and comparisons among languages as a means of discovering the commonalities of human language is discussed. Metalinguistics offers not only the potential for analyzing the specifics of each language, but also the tools for teaching across languages. (MSE)

  10. Propositions d'Outils pour une Grammaire du Francais Langue Etrangere (Suggestions for Tools for a Grammar of French as a Foreign Language)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lamy, Andre

    1975-01-01

    Recommends some deformalization of instruction, without rendering it simplistic, by cultivation of students' discrimination of the appropriateness of grammatical elements, at a level where the student has already accumulated examples of structures and situations in the language. Substantial examples are provided. (Text is in French.) (MSE)

  11. Use of Student Created Video Podcasts to Promote Foreign Language Grammar Acquisition in Middle School

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Parra, Sergio

    2016-01-01

    The use of video podcasts in education has emerged as a phenomenon that has gained a considerable amount of attention over the last few years. Although video podcasting is becoming a well-established technology in higher education, new multimedia instructional strategies such as student-created video podcasts in grades K-12 are under-researched.…

  12. The Effectiveness of Written Recasts in the Second Language Acquisition of Aspectual Distinctions in French: A Follow-Up Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ayoun, Dalila

    2004-01-01

    This follow-up study on the acquisition of the aspectual distinction between the pass compos (PC) and the imparfait (IMP) investigates the differential outcomes of the results presented in an earlier study, Ayoun (2001), by pursuing two lines of research: the effectiveness of written recasts versus models and traditional grammar instruction, and…

  13. Combining Multiple Knowledge Sources for Continuous Speech Recognition

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1989-08-01

    derived by estimating probabilities from a training set, or a linguistically -based model that uses syntactic and semantic information explicitly. The...into a hierarchical set of rules tha’ wouA. :over a much larger percentage of new sentences than the original sentence patteiis. We applied this tool...statistical grammars typically used by the use of linguistic knowledge. In particular, we group the different words in the vocabulary into classes, under the

  14. Orchestrating Semiotic Resources in Explicit Strategy Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shanahan, Lynn E.; Flury-Kashmanian, Caroline

    2014-01-01

    Research and pedagogical information provided to teachers on implementing explicit strategy instruction has primarily focused on teachers' speech, with limited attention to other modes of communication, such as gesture and artefacts. This interpretive case study investigates two teachers' use of different semiotic resources when introducing…

  15. Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Young-Davy, Belinda

    2014-01-01

    One of the questions facing language instructors is how direct vocabulary instruction should be. Much recent research into vocabulary acquisition and studies of learning strategies strongly indicates that the explicit vocabulary learning vs. implicit vocabulary learning issue is not a dichotomy, but rather a continuum (Hunt and Belgar, 2005; Lee…

  16. Fostering Upper Secondary Students' Ability to Engage in Practices of Scientific Investigation: a Comparative Analysis of an Explicit and an Implicit Instructional Approach

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Vorholzer, Andreas; von Aufschnaiter, Claudia; Boone, William J.

    2018-02-01

    Inquiry-based teaching is considered as contributing to content-related, procedural, and epistemic learning goals of science education. In this study, a quasi-experimental research design was utilized to investigate to what extent embedding inquiry activities in an explicit and an implicit instructional approach fosters students' ability to engage in three practices of scientific investigation (POSI): (1) formulating questions and hypotheses, (2) planning investigations, (3) analyzing and interpreting data. Both approaches were implemented in a classroom-based intervention conducted in a German upper secondary school (N = 222). Students' procedural knowledge of the three POSI was assessed with a paper-pencil test prior and post to the intervention, their content knowledge and dispositional factors (e.g., cognitive abilities) were gathered once. Results show that not only explicit but also implicit instruction fosters students' knowledge of POSI. While overall explicit instruction was found to be more effective, the findings indicate that the effectiveness depends considerably on the practice addressed. Moreover, findings suggest that both approaches were equally beneficial for all students regardless of their prior content knowledge and their prior procedural knowledge of POSI. Potential conditions for the success of explicit and implicit approaches as well as implications for instruction on POSI in science classrooms and for future research are discussed.

  17. Enhancing divergent thinking in visual arts education: Effects of explicit instruction of meta-cognition.

    PubMed

    van de Kamp, Marie-Thérèse; Admiraal, Wilfried; van Drie, Jannet; Rijlaarsdam, Gert

    2015-03-01

    The main purposes of visual arts education concern the enhancement of students' creative processes and the originality of their art products. Divergent thinking is crucial for finding original ideas in the initial phase of a creative process that aims to result in an original product. This study aims to examine the effects of explicit instruction of meta-cognition on students' divergent thinking. A quasi-experimental design was implemented with 147 secondary school students in visual arts education. In the experimental condition, students attended a series of regular lessons with assignments on art reception and production, and they attended one intervention lesson with explicit instruction of meta-cognition. In the control condition, students attended a series of regular lessons only. Pre-test and post-test instances tests measured fluency, flexibility, and originality as indicators of divergent thinking. Explicit instruction of meta-cognitive knowledge had a positive effect on fluency and flexibility, but not on originality. This study implies that in the domain of visual arts, instructional support in building up meta-cognitive knowledge about divergent thinking may improve students' creative processes. This study also discusses possible reasons for the demonstrated lack of effect for originality. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

  18. Social intuition as a form of implicit learning: Sequences of body movements are learned less explicitly than letter sequences

    PubMed Central

    Norman, Elisabeth; Price, Mark C.

    2012-01-01

    In the current paper, we first evaluate the suitability of traditional serial reaction time (SRT) and artificial grammar learning (AGL) experiments for measuring implicit learning of social signals. We then report the results of a novel sequence learning task which combines aspects of the SRT and AGL paradigms to meet our suggested criteria for how implicit learning experiments can be adapted to increase their relevance to situations of social intuition. The sequences followed standard finite-state grammars. Sequence learning and consciousness of acquired knowledge were compared between 2 groups of 24 participants viewing either sequences of individually presented letters or sequences of body-posture pictures, which were described as series of yoga movements. Participants in both conditions showed above-chance classification accuracy, indicating that sequence learning had occurred in both stimulus conditions. This shows that sequence learning can still be found when learning procedures reflect the characteristics of social intuition. Rule awareness was measured using trial-by-trial evaluation of decision strategy (Dienes & Scott, 2005; Scott & Dienes, 2008). For letters, sequence classification was best on trials where participants reported responding on the basis of explicit rules or memory, indicating some explicit learning in this condition. For body-posture, classification was not above chance on these types of trial, but instead showed a trend to be best on those trials where participants reported that their responses were based on intuition, familiarity, or random choice, suggesting that learning was more implicit. Results therefore indicate that the use of traditional stimuli in research on sequence learning might underestimate the extent to which learning is implicit in domains such as social learning, contributing to ongoing debate about levels of conscious awareness in implicit learning. PMID:22679467

  19. Differential Effects of Explicit Form-Focused Instruction on Morphosyntactic Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Xu, Hainu; Lyster, Roy

    2014-01-01

    This study explores whether and to what degree explicit form-focused instruction (FFI) facilitates the use of morphosyntactic forms in second language oral production and also whether it has differential effects on morphosyntactic forms with different linguistic variables. Twenty-seven university-level Chinese EFL participants were randomly…

  20. Fostering First-Graders' Reasoning Strategies with the Most Basic Sums

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Purpura, David J.; Baroody, Arthur J.; Eiland, Michael D.; Reid, Erin E.

    2012-01-01

    In a meta-analysis of 164 studies, Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich, and Tenenbaum (2010) found that assisted discovery learning was more effective than explicit instruction or unassisted discovery learning and that explicit instruction resulted in more favorable outcomes than unassisted discovery learning. In other words, "unassisted discovery does…

  1. A Framework for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction with English Language Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nisbet, Deanna L.; Tindall, Evie R.

    2015-01-01

    Academic vocabulary development is critical to the success of all learners--particularly English language learners (ELLs). This article presents a framework for integrating explicit academic vocabulary instruction for ELLs into middle school classrooms. The framework embodies five research-based principles and serves as a vehicle for structuring…

  2. El uso de escritos ensayisticos en clases de lengua espanola a nivel intermedio y superior (The Use of Written Essays in Intermediate and Advanced Level Spanish Language Classes).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Busch, Hans Jorg

    1994-01-01

    Presents as an alternative to the traditional Spanish textbook a modular approach that consists of activities based on essay reading and grammar exercises. Students liked this form of instruction, and most indicated that they had learned material previously unknown to them. (seven references) (Author/CK)

  3. Teacher Beliefs and Intentions regarding the Instruction of English Grammar under National Curriculum Reforms: A Theory of Planned Behaviour Perspective

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Underwood, Paul R.

    2012-01-01

    While numerous studies in mainstream education have drawn on the Theory of Planned Behaviour to investigate curriculum impact, in English Language Teaching contexts such research is scant. This study applies the theory to anticipate the impact of the Japanese national curriculum for English, by exploring the beliefs of senior high school teachers…

  4. Vocabulary and Grammar Differences Between Deaf and Hearing Students.

    PubMed

    Takahashi, Noboru; Isaka, Yukio; Yamamoto, Toshikazu; Nakamura, Tomoyasu

    2017-01-01

    The present study investigated the development of literacy skills of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children in Japan. The three components of literacy, vocabulary, orthographic knowledge, and grammatical knowledge were assessed by using the subtests of the Adaptive Tests for Language Abilities (ATLAN), based on the item response theory developed by the authors). The participants consisted of 207 DHH children (first through twelfth grades) in Study 1, and 425 hearing children (first through sixth grades) in Study 2. The findings show that more than 80% of DHH children's vocabulary variance was explained by the other two componential skills, while the three tasks' difficulty was different. More specifically, their vocabulary and especially, their grammar lagged behind those of hearing children, whereas the difference between the two groups on kanji (one of the three orthographic systems in Japanese taught during the school years) was less. Although considerably delayed, their pattern of responses in grammar was similar to that predicted from normative data. Effective instruction for DHH children's literacy skills was generally discussed. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  5. Is sequence awareness mandatory for perceptual sequence learning: An assessment using a pure perceptual sequence learning design.

    PubMed

    Deroost, Natacha; Coomans, Daphné

    2018-02-01

    We examined the role of sequence awareness in a pure perceptual sequence learning design. Participants had to react to the target's colour that changed according to a perceptual sequence. By varying the mapping of the target's colour onto the response keys, motor responses changed randomly. The effect of sequence awareness on perceptual sequence learning was determined by manipulating the learning instructions (explicit versus implicit) and assessing the amount of sequence awareness after the experiment. In the explicit instruction condition (n = 15), participants were instructed to intentionally search for the colour sequence, whereas in the implicit instruction condition (n = 15), they were left uninformed about the sequenced nature of the task. Sequence awareness after the sequence learning task was tested by means of a questionnaire and the process-dissociation-procedure. The results showed that the instruction manipulation had no effect on the amount of perceptual sequence learning. Based on their report to have actively applied their sequence knowledge during the experiment, participants were subsequently regrouped in a sequence strategy group (n = 14, of which 4 participants from the implicit instruction condition and 10 participants from the explicit instruction condition) and a no-sequence strategy group (n = 16, of which 11 participants from the implicit instruction condition and 5 participants from the explicit instruction condition). Only participants of the sequence strategy group showed reliable perceptual sequence learning and sequence awareness. These results indicate that perceptual sequence learning depends upon the continuous employment of strategic cognitive control processes on sequence knowledge. Sequence awareness is suggested to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for perceptual learning to take place. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Analogy motor learning by young children: a study of rope skipping.

    PubMed

    Tse, Andy C Y; Fong, Shirley S M; Wong, Thomson W L; Masters, Rich

    2017-03-01

    Research in psychology suggests that provision of an instruction by analogy can enhance acquisition and understanding of knowledge. Limited research has been conducted to test this proposition in motor learning by children. The purpose of the present study was to examine the feasibility of analogy instructions in motor skill acquisition by children. Thirty-two children were randomly assigned to one of the two instruction protocols: analogy and explicit instruction protocols for a two-week rope skipping training. Each participant completed a pretest (Lesson 1), three practice sessions (Lesson 2-4), a posttest and a secondary task test (Lesson 5). Children in the analogy protocol displayed better rope skip performance than those in the explicit instruction protocol (p < .001). Moreover, a cognitive secondary task test indicated that children in the analogy protocol performed more effectively, whereas children in the explicit protocol displayed decrements in performance. Analogy learning may aid children to acquire complex motor skills, and have potential benefits related to reduced cognitive processing requirements.

  7. Evaluating the Effects of a Systemic Intervention on First-Grade Teachers' Explicit Reading Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nelson-Walker, Nancy J.; Fien, Hank; Kosty, Derek B.; Smolkowski, Keith; Smith, Jean Louise M.; Baker, Scott K.

    2013-01-01

    This article examines the efficacy of a multitiered systemic reading intervention for increasing the intensity and quality of explicit literacy instruction that teachers provide in first-grade classrooms. Schools ("j" = 16) were randomly assigned to the treatment or comparison condition. In both conditions, teachers ("i" = 42)…

  8. Pedagogy for Developing Critical Thinking in Adolescents: Explicit Instruction Produces Greatest Gains

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Marin, Lisa M.; Halpern, Diane F.

    2011-01-01

    Although the development and transfer of critical thinking skills are recognized as primary goals for education, there is little empirical evidence to help educators decide how to teach in ways that enhance critical thinking. In two studies, we compared explicit and imbedded instructional modes and assessed critical thinking with the Halpern…

  9. Differentiating for Struggling Readers and Writers: Improving Motivation and Metacognition through Multisensory Methods & Explicit Strategy Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Walet, Jennifer

    2011-01-01

    This paper examines the issue of struggling readers and writers, and offers suggestions to help teachers increase struggling students' motivation and metacognition. Suggestions include multisensory methods that make use of the visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning pathways, as well as explicit strategy instruction to improve students' ability…

  10. Elementary Teachers' Perceptions about the Effective Features of Explicit-Reflective Nature of Science Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Adibelli-Sahin, Elif; Deniz, Hasan

    2017-01-01

    This qualitative study explored elementary teachers' perceptions about the effective features of explicit-reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction. Our participants were four elementary teachers from a public charter school located in the Southwestern U.S.A. The four elementary teachers participated in an academic year-long professional…

  11. Explicitly Teaching Social Skills Schoolwide: Using a Matrix to Guide Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Simonsen, Brandi; Myers, Diane; Everett, Susannah; Sugai, George; Spencer, Rebecca; LaBreck, Chris

    2012-01-01

    Socially skilled students are more successful in school. Just like academic skills, social skills need to be explicitly taught. Students, including students who display at-risk behavior, benefit when social skills instruction is delivered schoolwide as part of a comprehensive intervention approach. This article presents a seven-step action…

  12. The Order of Explicit Information in Processing Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McNulty Diaz, Erin

    2017-01-01

    The two main components of Processing Instruction (PI) are Explicit Information (EI) and Structured Input (SI). Most researchers have concluded that the SI is more responsible for learner gains than the EI (Benati, 2004a, 2004b; VanPatten & Oikennon, 1996; Wong, 2004). However, some researchers have found that EI does significantly impact…

  13. Elementary teachers' perceptions about the effective features of explicit-reflective nature of science instruction

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Adibelli-Sahin, Elif; Deniz, Hasan

    2017-04-01

    This qualitative study explored elementary teachers' perceptions about the effective features of explicit-reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction. Our participants were four elementary teachers from a public charter school located in the Southwestern U.S.A. The four elementary teachers participated in an academic year-long professional development about NOS which consisted of NOS training and NOS teaching phases. After each phase of the professional development, we specifically asked our participants which features of the explicit-reflective NOS instruction they found effective in improving their NOS conceptions by presenting pre- and post-profiles of their NOS conceptions. We identified nine features perceived by the participants as effective components of explicit-reflective NOS instruction: (1) specific focus on NOS content, (2) participation in hands-on NOS activities, (3) introductory NOS readings, (4) multiple types/forms of reflection, (5) multiple exposure to NOS content, (6) structural consistency in the presentation of NOS content, (7) the evaluation of secondary NOS data from elementary students, (8) the analysis of national and state science standards in terms of NOS content, and (9) NOS teaching experience.

  14. Human locognosic acuity on the arm varies with explicit and implicit manipulations of attention: implications for interpreting elevated tactile acuity on an amputation stump.

    PubMed

    O'Boyle, D J; Moore, C E; Poliakoff, E; Butterworth, R; Sutton, A; Cody, F W

    2001-06-01

    In Experiment 1, normal subjects' ability to localize tactile stimuli (locognosia) delivered to the upper arm was significantly higher when they were instructed explicitly to direct their attention selectively to that segment than when they were instructed explicitly to distribute their attention across the whole arm. This elevation of acuity was eliminated when subjects' attentional resources were divided by superimposition of an effortful, secondary task during stimulation. In Experiment 2, in the absence of explicit attentional instruction, subjects' locognosic acuity on one of three arm segments was significantly higher when stimulation of that segment was 2.5 times more probable than that of stimulation of the other two segments. We surmise that the attentional mechanisms responsible for such modulations of locognosic acuity in normal subjects may contribute to the elevated sensory acuity observed on the stumps of amputees.

  15. A Novel Connectionist Network for Solving Long Time-Lag Prediction Tasks

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Johnson, Keith; MacNish, Cara

    Traditional Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) perform poorly on learning tasks involving long time-lag dependencies. More recent approaches such as LSTM and its variants significantly improve on RNNs ability to learn this type of problem. We present an alternative approach to encoding temporal dependencies that associates temporal features with nodes rather than state values, where the nodes explicitly encode dependencies over variable time delays. We show promising results comparing the network's performance to LSTM variants on an extended Reber grammar task.

  16. Teaching the Grammar and Syntax of Business German: Problems and Practical Suggestions. Innovative Strategies and Exercises for Computer-Aided Instruction: Word Order Variation.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Paulsell, Patricia R.

    A computer program is described that is a substack of the "Business German" HyperCard program previously developed by Paulsell and designed as a tutorial to be used with materials for a business German course on the third year college level. The program consists of six stacks, a central one providing graphics-based information on Germany…

  17. Improving Writing Instruction through Professional Development and Professional Learning Communities (PLC'S): A Case Study of Six Teachers at A Middle School

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Marculitis, Terri

    2017-01-01

    Writing skills are crucial for student success in school. Students are assessed on their ability to write well using both lower (grammar, sentence structure) and higher (writing to respond to literature, demonstrate understanding of a topic) order skills. Writing is also important beyond the classrooms, as many jobs require the use of strong…

  18. Explicit Reflective Nature of Science Instruction: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Umbrellaology

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Scharmann, Lawrence C.; Smith, Mike U.; James, Mark C.; Jensen, Murray

    2005-02-01

    The investigators sought to design an instructional unit to enhance an understanding of the nature of science (NOS) by taking into account both instructional best practices and suggestions made by noted science philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in a course, Laboratory Techniques in the Teaching of Science, served as participants in action research. Sources of data used to inform instructional decisions included students written reaction papers to the assigned readings, transcribed verbal comments made during class discussions and other in-class activities, and final reflection essays. Three iterative implementations of the instructional unit were attempted. The objectives of the study were essentially met. The instructional unit was able to provoke preservice teachers into wrestling with many substantive issues associated with the NOS. Implications concerning the design of explicit reflective NOS instruction are included.

  19. Intrusive effects of implicitly processed information on explicit memory.

    PubMed

    Sentz, Dustin F; Kirkhart, Matthew W; LoPresto, Charles; Sobelman, Steven

    2002-02-01

    This study described the interference of implicitly processed information on the memory for explicitly processed information. Participants studied a list of words either auditorily or visually under instructions to remember the words (explicit study). They were then visually presented another word list under instructions which facilitate implicit but not explicit processing. Following a distractor task, memory for the explicit study list was tested with either a visual or auditory recognition task that included new words, words from the explicit study list, and words implicitly processed. Analysis indicated participants both failed to recognize words from the explicit study list and falsely recognized words that were implicitly processed as originating from the explicit study list. However, this effect only occurred when the testing modality was visual, thereby matching the modality for the implicitly processed information, regardless of the modality of the explicit study list. This "modality effect" for explicit memory was interpreted as poor source memory for implicitly processed information and in light of the procedures used. as well as illustrating an example of "remembering causing forgetting."

  20. Multiple systems of category learning.

    PubMed

    Smith, Edward E; Grossman, Murray

    2008-01-01

    We review neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence for the existence of three qualitatively different categorization systems. These categorization systems are themselves based on three distinct memory systems: working memory (WM), explicit long-term memory (explicit LTM), and implicit long-term memory (implicit LTM). We first contrast categorization based on WM with that based on explicit LTM, where the former typically involves applying rules to a test item and the latter involves determining the similarity between stored exemplars or prototypes and a test item. Neuroimaging studies show differences between brain activity in normal participants as a function of whether they are instructed to categorize novel test items by rule or by similarity to known category members. Rule instructions typically lead to more activation in frontal or parietal areas, associated with WM and selective attention, whereas similarity instructions may activate parietal areas associated with the integration of perceptual features. Studies with neurological patients in the same paradigms provide converging evidence, e.g., patients with Alzheimer's disease, who have damage in prefrontal regions, are more impaired with rule than similarity instructions. Our second contrast is between categorization based on explicit LTM with that based on implicit LTM. Neuropsychological studies with patients with medial-temporal lobe damage show that patients are impaired on tasks requiring explicit LTM, but perform relatively normally on an implicit categorization task. Neuroimaging studies provide converging evidence: whereas explicit categorization is mediated by activation in numerous frontal and parietal areas, implicit categorization is mediated by a deactivation in posterior cortex.

  1. Explicit Nature of Science and Argumentation Instruction in the Context of Socioscientific Issues: An effect on student learning and transfer

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Khishfe, Rola

    2014-04-01

    The purpose of the study was two-fold: to (a) investigate the influence of explicit nature of science (NOS) and explicit argumentation instruction in the context of a socioscientific issue on the argumentation skills and NOS understandings of students, and (b) explore the transfer of students' NOS understandings and argumentation skills learned in one socioscientific context into other similar contexts (familiar and unfamiliar). Participants were a total of 121 seventh grade students from two schools. The treatment involved an eight-week unit about the water usage and safety, which was taught by two teachers for two intact groups (Treatments I and II). Explicit NOS instruction was integrated for all groups. However, only the Treatment I groups had the additional explicit argumentation instruction. Participants were pre- and post-tested using an open-ended questionnaire and interviews about two socioscientific issues to assess their learning and transfer of argumentation skills and NOS understandings. Results showed improvements in the learning of argumentation practice and NOS understandings for Treatment I group participants. Similarly, there were improvements in the learning and transfer of NOS understandings for Treatment II group participants with only some improvements for the argumentation practice. Further, some of the Treatment I group participants made connections to argumentation when explicating their NOS understandings by the end of the study. Findings were discussed in light of classroom practice that utilizes an explicit approach, contextual approach, as well as an approach that integrates NOS and argumentation simultaneously.

  2. Improving the Spelling Ability among Speakers of African American English through Explicit Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pittman, Ramona T.; Joshi, R. Malatesha; Carreker, Suzanne

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this eight week study was to provide explicit instruction to improve spelling to 124 sixth grade students who are speakers of African American English (AAE). Two classroom teachers taught 14 different language arts class sections. The research design was a pretest/posttest/posttest design using wait-list-control. The treatment group…

  3. Using Explicit C-R-A Instruction to Teach Fraction Word Problem Solving to Low-Performing Asian English Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kim, Sun A.; Wang, Peishi; Michaels, Craig A.

    2015-01-01

    This article investigates the effects of fraction word problem-solving instruction involving explicit teaching of the concrete-representational-abstract sequence with culturally relevant teaching examples for 3 low-performing Asian immigrant English learners who spoke a language other than English at home. We used a multiple probe design across…

  4. The Perception of Prosodically Ambiguous Intonation Patterns by L2 English Learners and the Effects of Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gokgoz Kurt, Burcu; Medlin, Julie; Tessarolo, Ashley

    2014-01-01

    Considering the contradictory research on explicit teaching of suprasegmentals, the present study aims to investigate the effects of explicit instruction of L2 English learners' perception of prosodically ambiguous intonation patterns, as well as the possible effects of reported musical familiarity on intonation acquisition. A control group and a…

  5. An Attempt to Raise Japanese EFL Learners' Pragmatic Awareness Using Online Discourse Completion Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tanaka, Hiroya; Oki, Nanaho

    2015-01-01

    This practical paper discusses the effect of explicit instruction to raise Japanese EFL learners' pragmatic awareness using online discourse completion tasks. The five-part tasks developed by the authors use American TV drama scenes depicting particular speech acts and include explicit instruction in these speech acts. 46 Japanese EFL college…

  6. Explicit Instruction of Graphic Organizers as an Informational Text Reading Comprehension Strategy: Third-Grade Students' Strategies and Perceptions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fealy, Erin Marie

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this case study research was to explore the effects of explicit instruction of graphic organizers to support students' understandings of informational text. An additional purpose was to investigate students' perceptions of using graphic organizers as a comprehension strategy. Using case study methodology, this study occurred…

  7. Sustainability of Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary after Implicit versus Explicit Instruction in Kindergarten

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Damhuis, Carmen M. P.; Segers, Eliane; Verhoeven, Ludo

    2014-01-01

    We investigated the sustained effects of explicit versus implicit instruction on the breadth and depth of children's vocabularies, while taking their general vocabulary and verbal short-term memory into account. Two experimental groups with 12 and 15 kindergarten children respectively learned two sets of 17 words counterbalanced to be taught first…

  8. Awakening the Scientist Inside: Global Climate Change and the Nature of Science in an Elementary Science Methods Course

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Matkins, Juanita Jo; Bell, Randy L.

    2007-01-01

    This investigation assessed the impact of situating explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction within the issues surrounding global climate change and global warming (GCC/GW). Participants in the study were 15 preservice elementary teachers enrolled in a science methods course. The instructional intervention included explicit NOS instruction…

  9. Transfer-of-Training Effects in Processing Instruction: The Role of Form-Related Explicit Information

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    White, Justin P.; DeMil, Andrew J.

    2013-01-01

    This study compares the effects of processing instruction (PI), structured input (SI), and form-related explicit information (FREI) on a primary target form (i.e., third-person Spanish accusative clitics) and on a secondary form (i.e., third-person Spanish dative clitics). Participants included 151 adult learners enrolled in a beginning-level…

  10. Identifying and Predicting Classes of Response to Explicit Phonological Spelling Instruction during Independent Composing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Amtmann, Dagmar; Abbott, Robert D.; Berninger, Virginia W.

    2008-01-01

    After explicit spelling instruction, low achieving second grade spellers increased the number of correctly spelled words during composing but differed in response trajectories. Class 1 (low initial and slow growth) had the lowest initial performance and improved at a relatively slow rate. Class 2 (high initial and fast growth) started higher than…

  11. The Effect of Explicit Embedded Reflective Instruction on Nature of Science Understandings in Advanced Science Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Koksal, Mustafa Serdar; Cakiroglu, Jale; Geban, Omer

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of explicit-embedded-reflective (EER) instruction in nature of science (NOS) understandings of ninth-grade advanced science students. This study was conducted with 71 students, who were divided into three groups, by using non-equivalent quasi-experimental design. In the treatment…

  12. Reexamining Effects of Form-Focused Instruction on L2 Pronunciation Development: The Role of Explicit Phonetic Information

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Saito, Kazuya

    2013-01-01

    The present study examines whether and to what degree providing explicit phonetic information (EI) at the beginning of form-focused instruction (FFI) on second language pronunciation can enhance the generalizability and magnitude of FFI effectiveness by increasing learners' ability to notice a new phone. Participants were 49 Japanese learners of…

  13. Salience in Second Language Acquisition: Physical Form, Learner Attention, and Instructional Focus

    PubMed Central

    Cintrón-Valentín, Myrna C.; Ellis, Nick C.

    2016-01-01

    We consider the role of physical form, prior experience, and form focused instruction (FFI) in adult language learning. (1) When presented with competing cues to interpretation, learners are more likely to attend to physically more salient cues in the input. (2) Learned attention is an associative learning phenomenon where prior-learned cues block those that are experienced later. (3) The low salience of morphosyntactic cues can be overcome by FFI, which leads learners to attend cues which might otherwise be ignored. Experiment 1 used eye-tracking to investigate how language background influences learners’ attention to morphological cues, as well as the attentional processes whereby different types of FFI overcome low cue salience, learned attention and blocking. Chinese native speakers (no L1 verb-tense morphology) viewed Latin utterances combining lexical and morphological cues to temporality under control conditions (CCs) and three types of explicit FFI: verb grammar instruction (VG), verb salience with textual enhancement (VS), and verb pretraining (VP), and their use of these cues was assessed in a subsequent comprehension test. CC participants were significantly more sensitive to the adverbs than verb morphology. Instructed participants showed greater sensitivity to the verbs. These results reveal attentional processes whereby learners’ prior linguistic experience can shape their attention toward cues in the input, and whereby FFI helps learners overcome the long-term blocking of verb-tense morphology. Experiment 2 examined the role of modality of input presentation – aural or visual – in L1 English learners’ attentional focus on morphological cues and the effectiveness of different FFI manipulations. CC participants showed greater sensitivity toward the adverb cue. FFI was effective in increasing attention to verb-tense morphology, however, the processing of morphological cues was considerably more difficult under aural presentation. From visual exposure, the FFI conditions were broadly equivalent at tuning attention to the morphology, although VP resulted in balanced attention to both cues. The effectiveness of morphological salience-raising varied across modality: VS was effective under visual exposure, but not under aural exposure. From aural exposure, only VG was effective. These results demonstrate how salience in physical form, learner attention, and instructional focus all variously affect the success of L2 acquisition. PMID:27621715

  14. Small-Group Technology-Assisted Instruction: Virtual Teacher and Robot Peer for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    PubMed

    Saadatzi, Mohammad Nasser; Pennington, Robert C; Welch, Karla C; Graham, James H

    2018-06-20

    The authors combined virtual reality technology and social robotics to develop a tutoring system that resembled a small-group arrangement. This tutoring system featured a virtual teacher instructing sight words, and included a humanoid robot emulating a peer. The authors used a multiple-probe design across word sets to evaluate the effects of the instructional package on the explicit acquisition and vicarious learning of sight words instructed to three children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the robot peer. Results indicated that participants acquired, maintained, and generalized 100% of the words explicitly instructed to them, made fewer errors while learning the words common between them and the robot peer, and vicariously learned 94% of the words solely instructed to the robot.

  15. Improving DHH students' grammar through an individualized software program.

    PubMed

    Cannon, Joanna E; Easterbrooks, Susan R; Gagné, Phill; Beal-Alvarez, Jennifer

    2011-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine if the frequent use of a targeted, computer software grammar instruction program, used as an individualized classroom activity, would influence the comprehension of morphosyntax structures (determiners, tense, and complementizers) in deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) participants who use American Sign Language (ASL). Twenty-six students from an urban day school for the deaf participated in this study. Two hierarchical linear modeling growth curve analyses showed that the influence of LanguageLinks: Syntax Assessment and Intervention (LL) resulted in statistically significant gains in participants' comprehension of morphosyntax structures. Two dependent t tests revealed statistically significant results between the pre- and postintervention assessments on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Norm Referenced. The daily use of LL increased the morphosyntax comprehension of the participants in this study and may be a promising practice for DHH students who use ASL.

  16. When It Hurts (and Helps) to Try: The Role of Effort in Language Learning

    PubMed Central

    Finn, Amy S.; Lee, Taraz; Kraus, Allison; Hudson Kam, Carla L.

    2014-01-01

    Compared to children, adults are bad at learning language. This is counterintuitive; adults outperform children on most measures of cognition, especially those that involve effort (which continue to mature into early adulthood). The present study asks whether these mature effortful abilities interfere with language learning in adults and further, whether interference occurs equally for aspects of language that adults are good (word-segmentation) versus bad (grammar) at learning. Learners were exposed to an artificial language comprised of statistically defined words that belong to phonologically defined categories (grammar). Exposure occurred under passive or effortful conditions. Passive learners were told to listen while effortful learners were instructed to try to 1) learn the words, 2) learn the categories, or 3) learn the category-order. Effortful learners showed an advantage for learning words while passive learners showed an advantage for learning the categories. Effort can therefore hurt the learning of categories. PMID:25047901

  17. When it hurts (and helps) to try: the role of effort in language learning.

    PubMed

    Finn, Amy S; Lee, Taraz; Kraus, Allison; Hudson Kam, Carla L

    2014-01-01

    Compared to children, adults are bad at learning language. This is counterintuitive; adults outperform children on most measures of cognition, especially those that involve effort (which continue to mature into early adulthood). The present study asks whether these mature effortful abilities interfere with language learning in adults and further, whether interference occurs equally for aspects of language that adults are good (word-segmentation) versus bad (grammar) at learning. Learners were exposed to an artificial language comprised of statistically defined words that belong to phonologically defined categories (grammar). Exposure occurred under passive or effortful conditions. Passive learners were told to listen while effortful learners were instructed to try to 1) learn the words, 2) learn the categories, or 3) learn the category-order. Effortful learners showed an advantage for learning words while passive learners showed an advantage for learning the categories. Effort can therefore hurt the learning of categories.

  18. Intact implicit learning in autism spectrum conditions.

    PubMed

    Brown, Jamie; Aczel, Balazs; Jiménez, Luis; Kaufman, Scott Barry; Grant, Kate Plaisted

    2010-09-01

    Individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC) have diagnostic impairments in skills that are associated with an implicit acquisition; however, it is not clear whether ASC individuals show specific implicit learning deficits. We compared ASC and typically developing (TD) individuals matched for IQ on five learning tasks: four implicit learning tasks--contextual cueing, serial reaction time, artificial grammar learning, and probabilistic classification learning tasks--that used procedures expressly designed to minimize the use of explicit strategies, and one comparison explicit learning task, paired associates learning. We found implicit learning to be intact in ASC. Beyond no evidence of differences, there was evidence of statistical equivalence between the groups on all the implicit learning tasks. This was not a consequence of compensation by explicit learning ability or IQ. Furthermore, there was no evidence to relate implicit learning to ASC symptomatology. We conclude that implicit mechanisms are preserved in ASC and propose that it is disruption by other atypical processes that impact negatively on the development of skills associated with an implicit acquisition.

  19. Implicit structured sequence learning: an fMRI study of the structural mere-exposure effect

    PubMed Central

    Folia, Vasiliki; Petersson, Karl Magnus

    2014-01-01

    In this event-related fMRI study we investigated the effect of 5 days of implicit acquisition on preference classification by means of an artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm based on the structural mere-exposure effect and preference classification using a simple right-linear unification grammar. This allowed us to investigate implicit AGL in a proper learning design by including baseline measurements prior to grammar exposure. After 5 days of implicit acquisition, the fMRI results showed activations in a network of brain regions including the inferior frontal (centered on BA 44/45) and the medial prefrontal regions (centered on BA 8/32). Importantly, and central to this study, the inclusion of a naive preference fMRI baseline measurement allowed us to conclude that these fMRI findings were the intrinsic outcomes of the learning process itself and not a reflection of a preexisting functionality recruited during classification, independent of acquisition. Support for the implicit nature of the knowledge utilized during preference classification on day 5 come from the fact that the basal ganglia, associated with implicit procedural learning, were activated during classification, while the medial temporal lobe system, associated with explicit declarative memory, was consistently deactivated. Thus, preference classification in combination with structural mere-exposure can be used to investigate structural sequence processing (syntax) in unsupervised AGL paradigms with proper learning designs. PMID:24550865

  20. Style grammars for interactive visualization of architecture.

    PubMed

    Aliaga, Daniel G; Rosen, Paul A; Bekins, Daniel R

    2007-01-01

    Interactive visualization of architecture provides a way to quickly visualize existing or novel buildings and structures. Such applications require both fast rendering and an effortless input regimen for creating and changing architecture using high-level editing operations that automatically fill in the necessary details. Procedural modeling and synthesis is a powerful paradigm that yields high data amplification and can be coupled with fast-rendering techniques to quickly generate plausible details of a scene without much or any user interaction. Previously, forward generating procedural methods have been proposed where a procedure is explicitly created to generate particular content. In this paper, we present our work in inverse procedural modeling of buildings and describe how to use an extracted repertoire of building grammars to facilitate the visualization and quick modification of architectural structures and buildings. We demonstrate an interactive application where the user draws simple building blocks and, using our system, can automatically complete the building "in the style of" other buildings using view-dependent texture mapping or nonphotorealistic rendering techniques. Our system supports an arbitrary number of building grammars created from user subdivided building models and captured photographs. Using only edit, copy, and paste metaphors, the entire building styles can be altered and transferred from one building to another in a few operations, enhancing the ability to modify an existing architectural structure or to visualize a novel building in the style of the others.

  1. Implicit structured sequence learning: an fMRI study of the structural mere-exposure effect.

    PubMed

    Folia, Vasiliki; Petersson, Karl Magnus

    2014-01-01

    In this event-related fMRI study we investigated the effect of 5 days of implicit acquisition on preference classification by means of an artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm based on the structural mere-exposure effect and preference classification using a simple right-linear unification grammar. This allowed us to investigate implicit AGL in a proper learning design by including baseline measurements prior to grammar exposure. After 5 days of implicit acquisition, the fMRI results showed activations in a network of brain regions including the inferior frontal (centered on BA 44/45) and the medial prefrontal regions (centered on BA 8/32). Importantly, and central to this study, the inclusion of a naive preference fMRI baseline measurement allowed us to conclude that these fMRI findings were the intrinsic outcomes of the learning process itself and not a reflection of a preexisting functionality recruited during classification, independent of acquisition. Support for the implicit nature of the knowledge utilized during preference classification on day 5 come from the fact that the basal ganglia, associated with implicit procedural learning, were activated during classification, while the medial temporal lobe system, associated with explicit declarative memory, was consistently deactivated. Thus, preference classification in combination with structural mere-exposure can be used to investigate structural sequence processing (syntax) in unsupervised AGL paradigms with proper learning designs.

  2. Developing Reading-Writing Connections: The Impact of Explicit Instruction of Literary Devices on the Quality of Children's Narrative Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Corden, Roy

    2007-01-01

    The purpose of this collaborative schools-university study was to investigate how the explicit instruction of literary devices during designated literacy sessions could improve the quality of children's narrative writing. A guiding question for the study was: Can children's writing can be enhanced by teachers drawing attention to the literary…

  3. Indirect Goal Priming Is More Powerful than Explicit Instruction in Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kesek, Amanda; Cunningham, William A.; Packer, Dominic J.; Zelazo, Philip David

    2011-01-01

    This study examined the relative efficacy of explicit instruction and indirect priming on young children's behavior in a task that required a series of choices between a small immediate reward and a larger delayed reward. One hundred and six 4-year-old children were randomly assigned to one of four conditions involving one of two goals (maximize…

  4. Impact of Explicit Vocabulary Instruction on Writing Achievement of Upper-Intermediate EFL Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Solati-Dehkordi, Seyed Amir; Salehi, Hadi

    2016-01-01

    Studying explicit vocabulary instruction effects on improving L2 learners' writing skill and their short and long-term retention is the purpose of the present study. To achieve the mentioned goal, a fill-in-the-blank test including 36 single words and 60 lexical phrases were administrated to 30 female upper-intermediate EFL learners. The EFL…

  5. Teaching Multiple Modes of Representation in Middle-School Science Classrooms: Impact on Student Learning and Multimodal Use

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nixon, Ryan S.; Smith, Leigh K.; Wimmer, Jennifer J.

    2015-01-01

    This quasi-experimental study investigated how explicit instruction about multiple modes of representation (MMR) impacted grades 7 (n = 61) and 8 (n = 141) students' learning and multimodal use on end-of-unit assessments. Half of each teacher's (n = 3) students received an intervention consisting of explicit instruction on MMR in science…

  6. Nature of Science Instruction to Turkish Prospective Chemistry Teachers: The Effect of Explicit-Reflective Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Aglarci, Oya; Sariçayir, Hakan; Sahin, Musa

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of explicit-reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction on Turkish prospective chemistry teachers' (PCTs) views of NOS. In the research, case study as a qualitative design was used and PCTs' views were examined thoroughly. The participants of the study consisted of 22 senior PCTs. Data…

  7. The Effects of Explicit Reading Strategy Instruction and Cooperative Learning on Reading Comprehension in Fourth Grade Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lencioni, Gina M.

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit direct instruction and cooperative learning on reading comprehension in fourth grade students. A quasi-experimental design was used. There were six cognitive and three affective measures used to collect quantitative data. Cognitive measures included California State Test scores,…

  8. Explicit Instruction and Implicit Use of L2 Learning Strategies in Higher Secondary EFL Course Books

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bueno-Alastuey, M. Camino; Agulló, Gloria Luque

    2015-01-01

    Research has shown that teaching second language (L2) learning strategies explicitly promotes an increase in strategy use and in oral proficiency. Consequently, a checklist based on the six types of strategies from Oxford's taxonomy (1990) was created to analyze strategic instruction in the most common textbooks used in the last year of Higher…

  9. Explicit Knowledge and Processes from a Usage-Based Perspective: The Developmental Trajectory of an Instructed L2 Learner

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Roehr-Brackin, Karen

    2014-01-01

    This article considers explicit knowledge and processes in second language (L2) learning from a usage-based theoretical perspective. It reports on the long-term development of a single instructed adult learner's use of two L2 constructions, the German Perfekt of "gehen" ("go," "walk") and "fahren"…

  10. Effects of the SOLVE Strategy on the Mathematical Problem Solving Skills of Secondary Students with Learning Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Freeman-Green, Shaqwana M.; O'Brien, Chris; Wood, Charles L.; Hitt, Sara Beth

    2015-01-01

    This study examined the effects of explicit instruction in the SOLVE Strategy on the mathematical problem solving skills of six Grade 8 students with specific learning disabilities. The SOLVE Strategy is an explicit instruction, mnemonic-based learning strategy designed to help students in solving mathematical word problems. Using a multiple probe…

  11. Improving Summarizing Skills with TED Talks: An Account of a Teaching Lesson Using Explicit Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hashimoto, Shin'ichi; Fukuda, Eri; Okazaki, Hironobu

    2015-01-01

    This paper reports on a study which investigated the effectiveness of an explicit instruction approach in a Japanese university setting with third-year science and technology students in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course. The two aims of this study were: 1) to explore changes in students' attitudes and understanding of summary writing,…

  12. The Effects of Explicit and Implicit Pragmatic Instruction on the Development of Compliments and Compliment Responses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ebadi, Saman; Pourzandi, Mahsa

    2015-01-01

    This study explored the effects of explicit and implicit instructions in the development of EFL learners' speech acts of complimenting (Cs) and complimenting response (CRs). The participants in this research were 56 intermediate EFL learners from a language center, participating as members of intact classes that were divided into three groups of…

  13. Re-Examining the Role of Explicit Instruction and Input Flood on the Acquisition of Spanish Discourse Markers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hernandez, Todd A.

    2011-01-01

    Expanding on the studies of Hernandez (2008) and de la Fuente (2009), this investigation examines the combined effect of explicit instruction (EI) and input flood (IF) vs. IF alone on students' use of discourse markers to narrate a past event. Participants included 91 English-speaking adults enrolled in fourth-semester college Spanish courses,…

  14. A Multi-Year Program Developing an Explicit Reflective Pedagogy for Teaching Pre-Service Teachers the Nature of Science by Ostention

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smith, Mike U.; Scharmann, Lawrence

    2008-01-01

    This investigation delineates a multi-year action research agenda designed to develop an instructional model for teaching the nature of science (NOS) to preservice science teachers. Our past research strongly supports the use of explicit reflective instructional methods, which includes Thomas Kuhn's notion of learning by ostention and treating…

  15. Can Explaining Less Be More? Enhancing Vocabulary through Explicit versus Elaborative Storytelling

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vaahtoranta, Enni; Suggate, Sebastian; Jachmann, Cornelia; Lenhart, Jan; Lenhard, Wolfgang

    2018-01-01

    Shared reading represents an established practice to foster preschool vocabulary development, particularly when coupled with explicit instruction in word meanings. However, a question remains as to whether explicit word definitions detract from story delivery and hence language learning. Accordingly, this study compared explicit versus…

  16. Developmental Comparisons of Implicit and Explicit Language Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lichtman, Karen

    2013-01-01

    Conventional wisdom holds that children learn languages implicitly whereas older learners learn languages explicitly, and some have claimed that after puberty only explicit language learning is possible. However, older learners often receive more explicit instruction than child L2 learners, which may affect their learning strategies. This study…

  17. Integrating Representation Learning and Skill Learning in a Human-Like Intelligent Agent

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2013-06-21

    of 10 full-year controlled studies [Koedinger and MacLaren, 1997]. Nevertheless, the quality of the personalized instructions depends largely on the...relation among its children . The value of the direction field can be d, h, or v. d is the default value set for grammar rules that have only one child ...nearly comparable performance while significantly reducing the amount of knowledge engineering effort needed. 6.3 Experimental Study on

  18. The Effect of Input Device on User Performance With a Menu-Based Natural Language Interface

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1988-01-01

    Texas. The experiment was conducted and the data were analyzed by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University human factors engineexing personnel...comments. Thanks to Dr. William Fisher for his help in the parsing of the grammar used in the MBNL interface prototype, and to Mr. Ken Stevenson for...natural language instructions to accomplish particular tasks (Bobrow & Collins, 1975; Brown, Burton, & Bell, 1975; Ford, 1981; Green, Wolf, Chomsky

  19. Does the nature of science influence college students' learning of biological evolution?

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Butler, Wilbert, Jr.

    This quasi-experimental, mixed-methods study assessed the influence of the nature of science (NOS) instruction on college students' learning of biological evolution. In this research, conducted in two introductory biology courses, in each course the same instruction was employed, with one important exception: in the experimental section students were involved in an explicit, reflective treatment of the nature of science (Explicit, reflective NOS), in the traditional treatment section, NOS was implicitly addressed (traditional treatment). In both sections, NOS aspects of science addressed included is tentative, empirically based, subjective, inferential, and based on relationship between scientific theories and laws. Students understanding of evolution, acceptance of evolution, and understanding of the nature of science were assessed before, during and after instruction. Data collection entailed qualitative and quantitative methods including Concept Inventory for Natural Selection (CINS), Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) survey, Views of nature of Science (VNOS-B survey), as well as interviews, classroom observations, and journal writing to address understand students' views of science and understanding and acceptance of evolution. The quantitative data were analyzed via inferential statistics and the qualitative data were analyzed using grounded theory. The data analysis allowed for the construction and support for four assertions: Assertion 1: Students engaged in explicit and reflective NOS specific instruction significantly improved their understanding of the nature of science concepts. Alternatively, students engaged in instruction using an implicit approach to the nature of science did not improve their understanding of the nature of science to the same degree. The VNOS-B results indicated that students in the explicit, reflective NOS class showed the better understanding of the NOS after the course than students in the implicit NOS class. The increased understanding of NOS demonstrated by students in the explicit, reflective NOS class compared to students in the implicit NOS class can be attributed to the students' engagement in explicit and reflective NOS instruction that was absent in the implicit NOS class. Post VNOS results from students in the explicit, reflective NOS class showed marked improvement in the targeted aspects of NOS (empirical nature of scientific knowledge, inferential nature of scientific knowledge, subjective nature of scientific knowledge, the distinction between scientific law and theory, and the tentative nature of scientific knowledge) compared to the result of the pretest while the scores of students in the implicit NOS class demonstrated little change. Assertion 2: Students in the explicit, reflective NOS class section made greater gains in their understanding of evolution than students in the traditional class. The explicit, reflective NOS class demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in their understanding of biological evolution after the course, while the changes observed in the implicit NOS group were not found to be statistically significant---this despite that the manner in which evolution was taught was held constant across the two sections. Thus, the explicit, reflective NOS approach to the teaching of biological evolution seems to be more effective than many discussed in the literature in supporting student learning about evolution. Assertion 3: The conceptual gains by students in the explicit, reflective NOS course section were allowed by the affective "room" that a sophisticated understanding of the nature of the nature of science provides in a classroom. The data collected from this study collectively indicate that a sophisticated understanding of NOS allows students to recognize the boundaries of science. We argue that an explicit and reflective engagement of the NOS aspects helps the students understand the defining aspects of science better. Assertion 4: A change in students' understanding of evolution does not necessitate a change in students' acceptance of evolution. The results showed that students engaged in explicit and reflective NOS specific instruction significantly improved their understanding of NOS concepts and the understanding of evolution. However, there was not a significant change in acceptance of evolution related to the change in understanding. These results demonstrate that the nature of science instruction plays an important role in the teaching and learning of biological evolution. Nevertheless, this NOS instruction must be explicit and reflective in nature. Students that engage explicitly and reflectively on specific tenets of NOS not only developed a better understanding of the NOS aspects but also a better understanding of biological evolution. Therefore, science teachers in elementary, middle, secondary and post-secondary education should consider implementing an explicit, reflective approach to the nature of science into their science curriculum not only for teaching evolution but for other controversial topics as well. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

  20. Teaching Problem Explanations Using Instructive Feedback

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tullis, Christopher A.; Frampton, Sarah E.; Delfs, Caitlin H.; Shillingsburg, M. Alice

    2017-01-01

    Instructive feedback (IF) is a procedure in which extra information is presented to a participant during the consequence portion of instruction for other skills. Previous research has demonstrated that participants with intellectual disabilities may acquire a portion of non-targeted skills (secondary targets) without explicit instruction when…

  1. Phonological awareness: explicit instruction for young deaf and hard-of-hearing children.

    PubMed

    Miller, Elizabeth M; Lederberg, Amy R; Easterbrooks, Susan R

    2013-04-01

    The goal of this study was to explore the development of spoken phonological awareness for deaf and hard-of-hearing children (DHH) with functional hearing (i.e., the ability to access spoken language through hearing). Teachers explicitly taught five preschoolers the phonological awareness skills of syllable segmentation, initial phoneme isolation, and rhyme discrimination in the context of a multifaceted emergent literacy intervention. Instruction occurred in settings where teachers used simultaneous communication or spoken language only. A multiple-baseline across skills design documented a functional relation between instruction and skill acquisition for those children who did not have the skills at baseline with one exception; one child did not meet criteria for syllable segmentation. These results were confirmed by changes on phonological awareness tests that were administered at the beginning and end of the school year. We found that DHH children who varied in primary communication mode, chronological age, and language ability all benefited from explicit instruction in phonological awareness.

  2. Teaching as Interaction: Challenges in Transitioning Teachers' Instruction to Small Groups

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wyatt, Tasha; Chapman-DeSousa, Brook

    2017-01-01

    Although small group instruction is often endorsed in teaching young children, teachers are rarely given explicit instruction on how to move instruction into small groups where effective adult-child interactions can take place. This study examines how 14 early childhood educators transitioned their instruction from whole to small group teaching…

  3. The Effect of Explicit vs. Implicit Instruction on the Learnability of English Consonant Clusters by Iranian Learners of English

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Khanbeiki, Ruhollah; Abdolmanafi-Rokni, Seyed Jalal

    2015-01-01

    The present study was aimed at providing the English teachers across Iran with a good and fruitful method of teaching pronunciation. To this end, sixty female intermediate EFL learners were put in three different but equivalent groups of 20 based on the results of a pronunciation pre-test. One of the groups received explicit instruction including…

  4. Teachers' Implicit Attitudes, Explicit Beliefs, and the Mediating Role of Respect and Cultural Responsibility on Mastery and Performance-Focused Instructional Practices

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kumar, Revathy; Karabenick, Stuart A.; Burgoon, Jacob N.

    2015-01-01

    The theory of planned behavior and the dual process attitude-to-behavior MODE model framed an examination of how White teachers' (N = 241) implicit and explicit attitudes toward White versus non-White students were related to their classroom instructional practices in 2 school districts with a high percentage of Arab American and Chaldean American…

  5. An Analysis of a Typical Instructional Unit in Junior High School Science to Determine the Explicit and Implicit Concept Loading Involved. Final Report.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smith, Herbert A.

    This study involved examining an instructional unit with regard to its concept content and appropriateness for its target audience. The study attempted to determine (1) what concepts are treated explicitly or implicitly, (2) whether there is a hierarchical conceptual structure within the unit, (3) what level of sophistication is required to…

  6. Motivating Reading Comprehension: Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Guthrie, John T., Ed.; Wigfield, Allan, Ed.; Perencevich, Kathleen C., Ed.

    2004-01-01

    Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) is a unique, classroom-tested model of reading instruction that breaks new ground by explicitly showing how content knowledge, reading strategies, and motivational support all merge in successful reading instruction. A theoretical perspective (engagement in reading) frames the book and provides a…

  7. Instruction-Based Approach-Avoidance Effects: Changing Stimulus Evaluation via the Mere Instruction to Approach or Avoid Stimuli.

    PubMed

    Van Dessel, Pieter; De Houwer, Jan; Gast, Anne; Tucker Smith, Colin

    2015-01-01

    Prior research suggests that repeatedly approaching or avoiding a certain stimulus changes the liking of this stimulus. We investigated whether these effects of approach and avoidance training occur also when participants do not perform these actions but are merely instructed about the stimulus-action contingencies. Stimulus evaluations were registered using both implicit (Implicit Association Test and evaluative priming) and explicit measures (valence ratings). Instruction-based approach-avoidance effects were observed for relatively neutral fictitious social groups (i.e., Niffites and Luupites), but not for clearly valenced well-known social groups (i.e., Blacks and Whites). We conclude that instructions to approach or avoid stimuli can provide sufficient bases for establishing both implicit and explicit evaluations of novel stimuli and discuss several possible reasons for why similar instruction-based approach-avoidance effects were not found for valenced well-known stimuli.

  8. The effect of instructions on postural-suprapostural interactions in three working memory tasks.

    PubMed

    Burcal, Christopher J; Drabik, Evan C; Wikstrom, Erik A

    2014-06-01

    Examining postural control while simultaneously performing a cognitive, or suprapostural task, has shown a fairly consistent trend of improving postural control in young healthy adults and provides insight into postural control mechanisms used in everyday life. However, the role of attention driven by explicit verbal instructions while dual-tasking is less understood. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation is to determine the effects of explicit verbal instructions on the postural-suprapostural interactions among various domains of working memory. A total of 22 healthy young adults with a heterogeneous history of ankle sprains volunteered to participate (age: 22.2±5.1 years; n=10 history of ankle sprains, n=12 no history). Participants were asked to perform single-limb balance trials while performing three suprapostural tasks: backwards counting, random number generation, and the manikin test. In addition, each suprapostural task was completed under three conditions of instruction: no instructions, focus on the postural control task, focus on the suprapostural task. The results indicate a significant effect of instructions on postural control outcomes, with postural performance improving in the presence of instructions across all three cognitive tasks which each stress different aspects of working memory. Further, postural-suprapostural interactions appear to be related to the direction or focus of an individual's attention as instructions to focus on the suprapostural task resulted in the greatest postural control improvements.Thus, attention driven by explicit verbal instructions influence postural-suprapostural interactions as measured by a temporal-spatial postural control outcome, time-to-boundary, regardless of the suprapostural task performed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Notetaking Skills Instruction for Development of Middle School Students' Notetaking Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ilter, Ilhan

    2017-01-01

    The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit instruction in notetaking skills on the notetaking performance of seventh-grade students at different reading ability levels. The students in the notetaking instruction condition (NTI) received classroom-based notetaking skills instruction (approximately 40 minutes) every week…

  10. The Effect of Explicit vs. Implicit Instruction on Mastering the Speech Act of Thanking among Iranian Male and Female EFL Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ghaedrahmat, Mahdi; Alavi Nia, Parviz; Biria, Reza

    2016-01-01

    This pragmatic study investigated the speech act of thanking as used by non-native speakers of English. The study was an attempt to find whether the pragmatic awareness of Iranian EFL learners could be improved through explicit instruction of the structure of the speech act of "Thanking". In fact, this study aimed to find out if there…

  11. Effects of Gender, Rape-Supportive Attitudes, and Explicit Instruction on Perceptions of Women’s Momentary Sexual Interest

    PubMed Central

    Treat, Teresa A.; Church, Erin K.; Viken, Richard J.

    2016-01-01

    Contemporary models of male-initiated sexual aggression toward female acquaintances implicate misperception of women’s sexual interest. The current study investigated the effects of gender, rape-supportive attitudes, and an instructional manipulation on college students’ sexual-interest judgments. 276 women and 220 men judged the cues of momentary sexual interest expressed by photographed women; half received instruction on the differential validity of nonverbal cues of sexual interest for estimation of women’s momentary sexual interest. Participants also completed an assessment of rape-supportive attitudes. Overall, college students’ perceptions of women’s momentary sexual interest are compromised both nomothetically and idiographically. Both male and female college students relied not only on women’s nonverbal affect but also on the provocativeness of women’s clothing and attractiveness when judging women’s sexual interest. Men and women showed similar average ratings, but women relied more than men on women’s affect, whereas men relied more than women on women’s attractiveness. Both male and female students who endorsed more rape-supportive attitudes, relative to their peers, relied less on women’s affect and more on women’s clothing style and attractiveness. Explicit instruction regarding the greater validity of women’s affective than non-affective cues enhanced focus on non-verbal affective cues and decreased focus on clothing style and attractiveness. Although higher rape-supported attitudes predicted more deficits in processing cues of sexual interest, explicit instruction proved to be effective for both higher-risk and lower-risk participants. These findings highlight the generalizability of the well-established effects of explicit instruction on category learning to sexual perception and may point to procedures that eventually could be incorporated into augmented prevention programs for sexual aggression on college campuses. PMID:27753046

  12. How feedback, motor imagery, and reward influence brain self-regulation using real-time fMRI.

    PubMed

    Sepulveda, Pradyumna; Sitaram, Ranganatha; Rana, Mohit; Montalba, Cristian; Tejos, Cristian; Ruiz, Sergio

    2016-09-01

    The learning process involved in achieving brain self-regulation is presumed to be related to several factors, such as type of feedback, reward, mental imagery, duration of training, among others. Explicitly instructing participants to use mental imagery and monetary reward are common practices in real-time fMRI (rtfMRI) neurofeedback (NF), under the assumption that they will enhance and accelerate the learning process. However, it is still not clear what the optimal strategy is for improving volitional control. We investigated the differential effect of feedback, explicit instructions and monetary reward while training healthy individuals to up-regulate the blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal in the supplementary motor area (SMA). Four groups were trained in a two-day rtfMRI-NF protocol: GF with NF only, GF,I with NF + explicit instructions (motor imagery), GF,R with NF + monetary reward, and GF,I,R with NF + explicit instructions (motor imagery) + monetary reward. Our results showed that GF increased significantly their BOLD self-regulation from day-1 to day-2 and GF,R showed the highest BOLD signal amplitude in SMA during the training. The two groups who were instructed to use motor imagery did not show a significant learning effect over the 2 days. The additional factors, namely motor imagery and reward, tended to increase the intersubject variability in the SMA during the course of training. Whole brain univariate and functional connectivity analyses showed common as well as distinct patterns in the four groups, representing the varied influences of feedback, reward, and instructions on the brain. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3153-3171, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  13. Effects of gender, rape-supportive attitudes, and explicit instruction on perceptions of women's momentary sexual interest.

    PubMed

    Treat, Teresa A; Church, Erin K; Viken, Richard J

    2017-06-01

    Contemporary models of male-initiated sexual aggression toward female acquaintances implicate misperception of women's sexual interest. This study investigated the effects of gender, rape-supportive attitudes and an instructional manipulation on college students' sexual-interest judgments. Two hundred seventy-six women and 220 men judged the cues of momentary sexual interest expressed by photographed women; half received instruction on the differential validity of nonverbal cues of sexual interest for estimation of women's momentary sexual interest. Participants also completed an assessment of rape-supportive attitudes. Overall, college students' perceptions of women's momentary sexual interest are compromised both nomothetically and idiographically. Both male and female college students relied not only on women's nonverbal affect but also on the provocativeness of women's clothing and attractiveness when judging women's sexual interest. Men and women showed similar average ratings, but women relied more than men on women's affect, whereas men relied more than women on women's attractiveness. Both male and female students who endorsed more rape-supportive attitudes, relative to their peers, relied less on women's affect and more on women's clothing style and attractiveness. Explicit instruction regarding the greater validity of women's affective than nonaffective cues enhanced focus on nonverbal affective cues and decreased focus on clothing style and attractiveness. Although higher rape-supportive attitudes predicted more deficits in processing cues of sexual interest, explicit instruction proved to be effective for both higher-risk and lower-risk participants. These findings highlight the generalizability of the well-established effects of explicit instruction on category learning to sexual perception and may point to procedures that eventually could be incorporated into augmented prevention programs for sexual aggression on college campuses.

  14. Explicit Instructional Interactions: Observed Stability and Predictive Validity during Early Literacy and Beginning Mathematics Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Doabler, Christian T.; Nelson-Walker, Nancy; Kosty, Derek; Baker, Scott K.; Smolkowski, Keith; Fien, Hank

    2013-01-01

    In this study, the authors conceptualize teaching episodes such as an integrated set of observable student-teacher interactions. Instructional interactions that take place between teachers and students around critical academic content are a defining characteristic of classroom instruction and a component carefully defined in many education…

  15. Does Instruction Work for Learning Pragmatics in the EFL Context?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alcon Soler, Eva

    2005-01-01

    This paper is based on a study which attempted to examine the efficacy of instruction at the pragmatic level. Specifically, the main purpose of the study was to investigate to what extent two instructional paradigms--explicit versus implicit instruction--affected learners' knowledge and ability to use request strategies. One hundred and thirty-two…

  16. Vocabulary Intervention for Kindergarten Students: Comparing Extended Instruction to Embedded Instruction and Incidental Exposure

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coyne, Michael D.; McCoach, D. Betsy; Kapp, Sharon

    2007-01-01

    The purpose of the two studies reported in this article was to evaluate the effectiveness of extended vocabulary instruction during storybook reading with kindergarten students within a small-group intervention setting. Extended vocabulary instruction is characterized by explicit teaching that includes both contextual and definitional information,…

  17. An Alternative Time for Telling: When Conceptual Instruction Prior to Problem Solving Improves Mathematical Knowledge

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fyfe, Emily R.; DeCaro, Marci S.; Rittle-Johnson, Bethany

    2014-01-01

    Background: The sequencing of learning materials greatly influences the knowledge that learners construct. Recently, learning theorists have focused on the sequencing of instruction in relation to solving related problems. The general consensus suggests explicit instruction should be provided; however, when to provide instruction remains unclear.…

  18. Direct Problem-Based Learning (DPBL): A Framework for Integrating Direct Instruction and Problem-Based Learning Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Winarno, Sri; Muthu, Kalaiarasi Sonai; Ling, Lew Sook

    2018-01-01

    Direct instruction approach has been widely used in higher education. Many studies revealed that direct instruction improved students' knowledge. The characteristics of direct instruction include the subject delivered through face-to-face interaction with the lecturers and materials that sequenced deliberately and taught explicitly. However,…

  19. Using the Conceptual Change Instruction To Improve Learning.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alparslan, Cem; Tekkaya, Ceren; Geban, Omer

    2003-01-01

    Investigates the effect of conceptual change instruction on grade 11 students' understanding of respiration. The Respiration Concept Test was developed and used to test students' misconceptions. Results indicate that the conceptual change instruction that explicitly addressed students' misconceptions produced significantly greater achievement in…

  20. The properties of retrieval cues constrain the picture superiority effect.

    PubMed

    Weldon, M S; Roediger, H L; Challis, B H

    1989-01-01

    In three experiments, we examined why pictures are remembered better than words on explicit memory tests like recall and recognition, whereas words produce more priming than pictures on some implicit tests, such as word-fragment and word-stem completion (e.g., completing -l-ph-nt or ele----- as elephant). One possibility is that pictures are always more accessible than words if subjects are given explicit retrieval instructions. An alternative possibility is that the properties of the retrieval cues themselves constrain the retrieval processes engaged; word fragments might induce data-driven (perceptually based) retrieval, which favors words regardless of the retrieval instructions. Experiment 1 demonstrated that words were remembered better than pictures on both the word-fragment and word-stem completion tasks under both implicit and explicit retrieval conditions. In Experiment 2, pictures were recalled better than words with semantically related extralist cues. In Experiment 3, when semantic cues were combined with word fragments, pictures and words were recalled equally well under explicit retrieval conditions, but words were superior to pictures under implicit instructions. Thus, the inherently data-limited properties of fragmented words limit their use in accessing conceptual codes. Overall, the results indicate that retrieval operations are largely determined by properties of the retrieval cues under both implicit and explicit retrieval conditions.

  1. Closure properties of Watson-Crick grammars

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zulkufli, Nurul Liyana binti Mohamad; Turaev, Sherzod; Tamrin, Mohd Izzuddin Mohd; Azeddine, Messikh

    2015-12-01

    In this paper, we define Watson-Crick context-free grammars, as an extension of Watson-Crick regular grammars and Watson-Crick linear grammars with context-free grammar rules. We show the relation of Watson-Crick (regular and linear) grammars to the sticker systems, and study some of the important closure properties of the Watson-Crick grammars. We establish that the Watson-Crick regular grammars are closed under almost all of the main closure operations, while the differences between other Watson-Crick grammars with their corresponding Chomsky grammars depend on the computational power of the Watson-Crick grammars which still need to be studied.

  2. Classroom Materials for Job-Related BSEP 2 Program

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1983-09-01

    gathered D. gathered, combined, camoufl age 10. The greedy man was happy to take the money. A. greedy C. was *B. was happy D. take 11. The banana ...tastes good with peanut butter on it. A. tastes C. tastes good B. on D. banana III. Instructions: You are given a choice of two verbs in the following...previously o.- before. (The M16 had ALREADY been fired.) 162 peel Grammar Activity Sheet 36A Good Usage of English Name 6. ALL RIGHT - "ALRIGHT" ALL RIGHT

  3. Fiche pratique: Anaphores et enchainements; B. d. de Grand Vent; FDM Frequence plus: Une minute sur la mode; Chimie pour non-chimistes (Practical Ideas: Anaphors and Linking; The Comic Strip "Grand Vent"; One Minute on Fashion; Chemistry for Non-Chemists).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baldovi, Josep Ramon Torres

    1994-01-01

    Ideas for French instruction are offered, including a grammar exercise on pronouns; exploration of a comic strip's language and culture; use of a taped program on fashion; and an activity to help French language teachers cope with unfamiliar discipline-specific texts, whose topics (but not language) are familiar to their students. (MSE)

  4. Designing an Advanced Instructional Design Advisor: Incorporating Visual Materials and Other Research Issues. Volume 4

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1991-12-01

    property of graphics (such as concreteness) shared by other media that has benefitted performance. The exact componential aspect of a graphic...graphic will normally attempt to convey some substantive information, and it will do so using a "grammar" and "syntax" which are assumed to be shared ...and Ehrenfeucht (1982) specifically tried to equate content as well as structure between a narrative movie (The Unicorn in the Garden) and a text. They

  5. The Effects of Training Contingency Awareness During Attention Bias Modification on Learning and Stress Reactivity.

    PubMed

    Lazarov, Amit; Abend, Rany; Seidner, Shiran; Pine, Daniel S; Bar-Haim, Yair

    2017-09-01

    Current attention bias modification (ABM) procedures are designed to implicitly train attention away from threatening stimuli with the hope of reducing stress reactivity and anxiety symptoms. However, the mechanisms underlying effective ABM delivery are not well understood, with awareness of the training contingency suggested as one possible factor contributing to ABM efficacy. Here, 45 high-anxious participants were trained to divert attention away from threat in two ABM sessions. They were randomly assigned to one of three training protocols: an implicit protocol, comprising two standard implicit ABM training sessions; an explicit protocol, comprising two sessions with explicit instruction as to the attention training contingency; and an implicit-explicit protocol, in which participants were not informed of the training contingency in the first ABM session and informed of it at the start of the second session. We examined learning processes and stress reactivity following a stress-induction task. Results indicate that relative to implicit instructions, explicit instructions led to stronger learning during the first training session. Following rest, the explicit and implicit groups exhibited consolidation-related improvement in performance, whereas no such improvement was noted for the implicit-explicit group. Finally, although stress reactivity was reduced after training, contingency awareness did not yield a differential effect on stress reactivity measured using both self-reports and skin conductance, within and across sessions. These results suggest that explicit ABM administration leads to greater initial learning during the training protocol while not differing from standard implicit administration in terms of off-line learning and stress reactivity. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  6. The construction of meaning.

    PubMed

    Kintsch, Walter; Mangalath, Praful

    2011-04-01

    We argue that word meanings are not stored in a mental lexicon but are generated in the context of working memory from long-term memory traces that record our experience with words. Current statistical models of semantics, such as latent semantic analysis and the Topic model, describe what is stored in long-term memory. The CI-2 model describes how this information is used to construct sentence meanings. This model is a dual-memory model, in that it distinguishes between a gist level and an explicit level. It also incorporates syntactic information about how words are used, derived from dependency grammar. The construction of meaning is conceptualized as feature sampling from the explicit memory traces, with the constraint that the sampling must be contextually relevant both semantically and syntactically. Semantic relevance is achieved by sampling topically relevant features; local syntactic constraints as expressed by dependency relations ensure syntactic relevance. Copyright © 2010 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  7. Some Issues in the Design, Selection and Utilization of Instructional Simulations in a Microcomputer Modality.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brandhorst, Allan R.

    Some factors in the design of instructional micrcomputer simulations that high school social studies teachers must consider when selecting and using computer software are discussed: (1) Instructional computer simulations are adequate instructionally only to the extent that they make explicit the set of relationships underlying the program for the…

  8. Effects of supported electronic text and explicit instruction on science comprehension by students with autism spectrum disorder

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Knight, Victoria Floyd

    Supported electronic text (eText), or text that has been altered to increase access and provide support to learners, may promote comprehension of science content for students with disabilities. According to CAST, Book Builder(TM) uses supported eText to promote reading for meaning for all students. Although little research has been conducted in the area of supported eText for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), technology (e.g., computer assisted instruction) has been used for over 35 years to instruct students with ASD in academic areas. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a supported eText and explicit instruction on the science vocabulary and comprehension of four middle school students with ASD. Researchers used a multiple probe across participants design to evaluate the Book Builder (TM) program on measures of vocabulary, literal comprehension, and application questions. Results indicated a functional relation between the Book Builder(TM) and explicit instruction (i.e., model-lead-test, examples and non-examples, and referral to the definition) and the number of correct responses on the probe. In addition, students were able to generalize concepts to untrained exemplars. Finally, teachers and students validate the program as practical and useful.

  9. Robust Vocabulary Instruction in a Readers' Workshop

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Feezell, Greg

    2012-01-01

    This article presents strategies for integrating explicit vocabulary instruction within a reading workshop. The author begins by describing a process for involving students in word selection. The author then provides a weeklong instructional sequence using student-selected words. Finally, the author briefly examines the role of vocabulary…

  10. Backward Design: Targeting Depth of Understanding for All Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Childre, Amy; Sands, Jennifer R.; Pope, Saundra Tanner

    2009-01-01

    Curriculum design is at the center of developing student ability to construct understanding. Without appropriately designed curriculum, instruction can be ineffective at scaffolding understanding. Often students with disabilities need more explicit instruction or guidance in applying their schema to new information. Thus, instruction must not only…

  11. Explicit Instructions Increase Cognitive Costs of Deception in Predictable Social Context

    PubMed Central

    Falkiewicz, Marcel; Sarzyńska, Justyna; Babula, Justyna; Szatkowska, Iwona; Grabowska, Anna; Nęcka, Edward

    2015-01-01

    Convincing participants to deceive remains one of the biggest and most important challenges of laboratory-based deception research. The simplest and most prevalent method involves explicitly instructing participants to lie or tell the truth before presenting each task item. The usual finding of such experiments is increased cognitive load associated with deceptive responses, explained by necessity to inhibit default and automatic honest responses. However, explicit instructions are usually coupled with the absence of social context in the experimental task. Context plays a key role in social cognition by activating prior knowledge, which facilitates behaviors consistent with the latter. We hypothesized that in the presence of social context, both honest and deceptive responses can be produced on the basis of prior knowledge, without reliance on truth and without additional cognitive load during deceptive responses. In order to test the hypothesis, we have developed Speed-Dating Task (SDT), which is based on a real-life social event. In SDT, participants respond both honestly and deceptively to questions in order to appear similar to each of the dates. The dates are predictable and represent well-known categories (i.e., atheist or conservative). In one condition participants rely on explicit instructions preceding each question (external cue). In the second condition no explicit instructions are present, so the participants need to adapt based on prior knowledge about the category the dates belong to (internal cue). With internal cues, reaction times (RTs) are similar for both honest and deceptive responses. However, in the presence of external cues (EC), RTs are longer for deceptive than honest responses, suggesting that deceptive responses are associated with increased cognitive load. Compared to internal cues, deception costs were higher when EC were present. However, the effect was limited to the first part of the experiment, only partially confirming our initial hypothesis. The results suggest that the presence of social context in deception tasks might have a significant influence on cognitive processes associated with deception. PMID:26696929

  12. Investigating how students communicate tree-thinking

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Boyce, Carrie Jo

    Learning is often an active endeavor that requires students work at building conceptual understandings of complex topics. Personal experiences, ideas, and communication all play large roles in developing knowledge of and understanding complex topics. Sometimes these experiences can promote formation of scientifically inaccurate or incomplete ideas. Representations are tools used to help individuals understand complex topics. In biology, one way that educators help people understand evolutionary histories of organisms is by using representations called phylogenetic trees. In order to understand phylogenetics trees, individuals need to understand the conventions associated with phylogenies. My dissertation, supported by the Tree-Thinking Representational Competence and Word Association frameworks, is a mixed-methods study investigating the changes in students' tree-reading, representational competence and mental association of phylogenetic terminology after participation in varied instruction. Participants included 128 introductory biology majors from a mid-sized southern research university. Participants were enrolled in either Introductory Biology I, where they were not taught phylogenetics, or Introductory Biology II, where they were explicitly taught phylogenetics. I collected data using a pre- and post-assessment consisting of a word association task and tree-thinking diagnostic (n=128). Additionally, I recruited a subset of students from both courses (n=37) to complete a computer simulation designed to teach students about phylogenetic trees. I then conducted semi-structured interviews consisting of a word association exercise with card sort task, a retrospective pre-assessment discussion, a post-assessment discussion, and interview questions. I found that students who received explicit lecture instruction had a significantly higher increase in scores on a tree-thinking diagnostic than students who did not receive lecture instruction. Students who received both explicit lecture instruction and the computer simulation had a higher level of representational competence and were better able to understand abstract-style phylogenetic trees than students who only completed the simulation. Students who received explicit lecture instruction had a slightly more scientific association of phylogenetic terms than students who received did not receive lecture instruction. My findings suggest that technological instruction alone is not as beneficial as lecture instruction.

  13. Probabilistic models of cognition: conceptual foundations.

    PubMed

    Chater, Nick; Tenenbaum, Joshua B; Yuille, Alan

    2006-07-01

    Remarkable progress in the mathematics and computer science of probability has led to a revolution in the scope of probabilistic models. In particular, 'sophisticated' probabilistic methods apply to structured relational systems such as graphs and grammars, of immediate relevance to the cognitive sciences. This Special Issue outlines progress in this rapidly developing field, which provides a potentially unifying perspective across a wide range of domains and levels of explanation. Here, we introduce the historical and conceptual foundations of the approach, explore how the approach relates to studies of explicit probabilistic reasoning, and give a brief overview of the field as it stands today.

  14. The role of attention and intention in synchronization to music: effects on gait.

    PubMed

    Leow, Li-Ann; Waclawik, Kristina; Grahn, Jessica A

    2018-01-01

    Anecdotal accounts suggest that individuals spontaneously synchronize their movements to the 'beat' of background music, often without intending to, and perhaps even without attending to the music at all. However, the question of whether intention and attention are necessary to synchronize to the beat remains unclear. Here, we compared whether footsteps during overground walking were synchronized to the beat when young healthy adults were explicitly instructed to synchronize (intention to synchronize), and were not instructed to synchronize (no intention) (Experiment 1: intention). We also examined whether reducing participants' attention to the music affected synchronization, again when participants were explicitly instructed to synchronize, and when they were not (Experiment 2: attention/intention). Synchronization was much less frequent when no instructions to synchronize were given. Without explicit instructions to synchronize, there was no evidence of synchronization in 60% of the trials in Experiment 1, and 43% of the trials in Experiment 2. When instructed to synchronize, only 26% of trials in Experiment 1, and 14% of trials in Experiment 2 showed no evidence of synchronization. Because walking to music alters gait, we also examined how gait kinematics changed with or without instructions to synchronize, and attention to the music was required for synchronization to occur. Instructions to synchronize elicited slower, shorter, and more variable strides than walking in silence. Reducing attention to the music did not significantly affect synchronization of footsteps to the beat, but did elicit slower gait. Thus, during walking, intention, but not attention, appears to be necessary to synchronize footsteps to the beat, and synchronization elicits slower, shorter, and more variable strides, at least in young healthy adults.

  15. Emotion regulation and mania risk: Differential responses to implicit and explicit cues to regulate.

    PubMed

    Ajaya, Yatrika; Peckham, Andrew D; Johnson, Sheri L

    2016-03-01

    People prone to mania use emotion regulation (ER) strategies well when explicitly coached to do so in laboratory settings, but they find these strategies ineffective in daily life. We hypothesized that, compared with control participants, mania-prone people would show ER deficits when they received implicit, but not explicit, cues to use ER. Undergraduates (N = 66) completed the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) and were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: automatic ER (scrambled sentence primes), deliberate ER (verbal instructions), or control (no priming or instructions to use ER). Then, participants played a videogame designed to evoke anger. Emotion responses were measured with a multi-modal assessment of self-reported affect, psychophysiology, and facial expressions. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was used to index ER. The videogame effectively elicited subjective anger, angry facial expressions, and heart rate increases when keys malfunctioned. As hypothesized, persons who were more mania prone showed greater RSA increases in the deliberate ER condition than in the automatic or control conditions. One potential limitation is the use of an analog sample. Findings suggest that those at risk for mania require more explicit instruction to engage ER effectively. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Teachers' Perceptions of Strategy Based Reading Instruction for Reading Comprehension

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gibson, Katherine D.

    2009-01-01

    Strategy based reading instruction helps teachers differentiate the teaching of reading. It also supports many types of readers by explicitly teaching and modeling reading comprehension strategies. The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of strategy based reading instruction for improving student reading comprehension. …

  17. The First "R": Evidence-Based Reading Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ritchey, Kristen D.

    2011-01-01

    Students with learning disabilities (LD) represent a significant proportion of students enrolled in U.S. schools. Research suggests that students with LD in reading benefit from specialized reading instruction, and effective reading instruction can be characterized as explicit, intensive, and systematic. Examples of evidence-based interventions…

  18. Teaching Scientific Communication Skills in Science Studies: Does It Make a Difference?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Spektor-Levy, Ornit; Eylon, Bat-Sheva; Scherz, Zahava

    2009-01-01

    This study explores the impact of "Scientific Communication" (SC) skills instruction on students' performances in scientific literacy assessment tasks. We present a general model for skills instruction, characterized by explicit and spiral instruction, integration into content learning, practice in several scientific topics, and application of…

  19. Exploring Principals' Instructional Leadership Practices in Malaysia: Insights and Implications

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harris, Alma; Jones, Michelle; Cheah, Kenny Soon Lee; Devadason, Edward; Adams, Donnie

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline the findings from a small-scale, exploratory, study of principals' instructional leadership practice in Malaysian primary schools. The dimensions and functions of instructional leadership, explicitly explored in this study, are those outlined in the Hallinger and Murphy's (1985) model.…

  20. Teaching and Learning in Preschool: Using Individually Appropriate Practices in Early Childhood Literacy Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Venn, Elizabeth Claire; Jahn, Monica Dacy

    2004-01-01

    Students will benefit from this unique preschool framework that integrates individually appropriate practices, literacy activities, play, and explicit instruction into content area lessons. Included are chapters on Oral language development; Phonological awareness; Early reading and writing; Print concepts; Instruction in content areas; and…

  1. Pronunciation Instruction through Twitter: The Case of Commonly Mispronounced Words

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fouz-González, Jonás

    2017-01-01

    This paper presents the results of a study aimed at exploring the possibilities Twitter offers for pronunciation instruction. It investigates the potential of a Twitter-based approach based on explicit instruction and input enhancement techniques to help English Foreing Language (EFL) learners improve their pronunciation of segmental and…

  2. A lab-controlled simulation of a letter-speech sound binding deficit in dyslexia.

    PubMed

    Aravena, Sebastián; Snellings, Patrick; Tijms, Jurgen; van der Molen, Maurits W

    2013-08-01

    Dyslexic and non-dyslexic readers engaged in a short training aimed at learning eight basic letter-speech sound correspondences within an artificial orthography. We examined whether a letter-speech sound binding deficit is behaviorally detectable within the initial steps of learning a novel script. Both letter knowledge and word reading ability within the artificial script were assessed. An additional goal was to investigate the influence of instructional approach on the initial learning of letter-speech sound correspondences. We assigned children from both groups to one of three different training conditions: (a) explicit instruction, (b) implicit associative learning within a computer game environment, or (c) a combination of (a) and (b) in which explicit instruction is followed by implicit learning. Our results indicated that dyslexics were outperformed by the controls on a time-pressured binding task and a word reading task within the artificial orthography, providing empirical support for the view that a letter-speech sound binding deficit is a key factor in dyslexia. A combination of explicit instruction and implicit techniques proved to be a more powerful tool in the initial teaching of letter-sound correspondences than implicit training alone. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Transfer of Nature of Science Understandings into Similar Contexts: Promises and Possibilities of an Explicit Reflective Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Khishfe, Rola

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to (a) investigate the effectiveness of explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction in the context of controversial socioscientific issues and (b) explore whether the transfer of acquired NOS understandings, which were explicitly taught in the context of one socioscientific context, into other similar contexts…

  4. Defense et illustration de la grammaire philologique (An Example and a Defense of Philological Grammar)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dupont, Louis

    1972-01-01

    Author cites philological grammar" as one of three ways of treating language. The other two approaches to language are traditional grammar and linguistic grammar or transformational generative grammar. Philological grammar stresses the art of reading. (DS)

  5. The impact of peer review on paediatric forensic reports.

    PubMed

    Kariyawasam, Uditha

    2016-10-01

    To retrospectively evaluate the common grammar and spelling errors of the medico-legal reports written by the doctors at the Victorian Forensic Paediatric Medical Service (VFPMS) in both Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) and Monash Medical Centre. The reports were evaluated at two points in time; before and after peer review. The aim of the study was to ascertain whether peer review improved the grammar and spelling in VFPMS medico-legal reports. Draft VFPMS reports are sent to the VFPMS medical director for peer review. The current study sampled 50 reports that were sent consecutively to Dr. Anne Smith from 1st of May 2015. The 50 corresponding final reports were then retrieved from the VFPMS database. The 50 pairs of draft and final reports were scored using a 50-point scoring system. The scores of the draft reports were compared to the scores of the final report to assess if there was a change in quality as measured using an explicit criteria audit of report structure, simple grammar, jargon use and spelling. The audit did not include evaluation of the validity of forensic opinions. The overall scores were statistically analysed using descriptive statistics and a paired T-test. The scores of the reports improved by 2.24% when the final reports were compared to the draft reports (p < 0.001). The peer-review process resulted in a significantly higher quality of medico-legal reports. The report writing and peer-review process could be assisted by an abbreviated version of the checklist used for the audit. Crown Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. The effectiveness of conceptual change texts and concept clipboards in learning the nature of science

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Çil, Emine; Çepni, Salih

    2016-01-01

    Background: One of the most important goals of science education is to enable students to understand the nature of science (NOS). However, generally regular science teaching in classrooms does not help students improve informed NOS views. Purpose: This study investigated the influence of an explicit reflective conceptual change approach compared with an explicit reflective inquiry-oriented approach on seventh graders' understanding of NOS. Sample: The research was conducted with seventh grade students. A total of 44 students participated in the study. Design and method: The study was an interpretive study because this study focused on the meanings that students attach to target aspects of NOS. Participants were divided into two groups, each consisting of 22 students. One of the groups learned NOS with an explicit reflective conceptual change approach. The requirements of conceptual change were provided through the use of conceptual change texts and concept cartoons. The other group learned NOS with an explicit reflective inquiry-oriented approach. The data were collected through open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. These instruments were employed in a pre-test, a post-test and a delayed test. Students' views of the aspects of NOS were categorized as naive, transitional and informed. Results: The result of this study indicated that before receiving instruction, most of the participants had transitional views of the tentative, empirical and imaginative and creative aspects of the NOS, and they had naive understandings of the distinction between observation and inference. The instruction in the experimental group led to a 60% - a 25% increase in the number of students who possessed an informed understanding of the tentative, empirical, creative and observation and inference aspect of the NOS. The instruction in the control group led to a 30% - a 15% increase in the informed NOS views. Conclusion: The explicit reflective conceptual change approach is more effective than the explicit reflective inquiry-oriented approach in improving participants' NOS conceptions. Another conclusion of this study is that if NOS is taught within the explicit reflective conceptual change approach, learners can retain learned views long after instruction.

  7. The effect of explicit, inquiry instruction on freshman college science majors' understanding of the nature of science

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kenyon, Lisa Orvik

    Reform efforts have placed strong emphasis on teaching practices that should help students learn about the nature of science. Researchers have examined two general instructional approaches, explicit and implicit, believed to be useful in teaching science. Of these two approaches, researchers emphasize explicit instruction as the more effective approach when enhancing students' views of the scientific endeavor (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Bell, 2001; Billeh & Hasan, 1975; Carey & Stauss, 1968; Schwartz et al., 2000). Furthermore, recent studies (Schwartz et al ., 2000, 2001) indicate that teaching science inquiry through investigative activities and reflective discussions have demonstrated to be most effective for understanding science. The purpose of this study was to describe the effect of explicit, inquiry instruction on the understanding of freshman college science majors regarding the nature of science. Participants included 74 freshman college science majors, 50 students in the experimental group and 24 students in the control group. The experimental group was exposed to the treatment of the study, which took place in a Succeeding in Science course. The course content included explicit instruction on the nature of science, emphasizing scientific inquiry and the processes that scientists carry out in their work. The course reflected three aspects of inquiry-based science that are discussed in the Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (2000) which are (1) to learn the principles and concepts of science; (2) to participate in scientific investigations; and (3) to reflect on the epistemology of science. The research design of this study used a pretest-posttest instrument, The Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire Form C (VNOS-C) (Lederman et al., 2001) and an essay paper at the end of the course to assess students' understanding about the nature of science. The results from the VNOS-C were analyzed using analysis of covariance in which the dependent variable was student understanding of science as measured by the posttest, and the covariate was student understanding of nature of science as measured by the pretest. The results indicated that the understanding of the nature of science of freshman college science majors who have participated in explicit, inquiry instruction is statistically greater than the understanding of the nature of science of freshman college science majors who have participated in traditional instruction. The essays provided insight into the apparent increase in student understanding of the nature of science. The results from pretesting and posttesting indicated that a one-semester credit hour course, which focuses directly on teaching about the nature of science can improve freshman science majors' understanding of the nature of science.

  8. Grammar A and Grammar B: Rhetorical Life and Death.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Guinn, Dorothy Margaret

    In the past, writers have chosen stylistic devices within the parameters of the traditional grammar of style, "Grammar A," characterized by analyticity, coherence, and clarity. But many contemporary writers are creating a new grammar of style, "Grammar B," characterized by synchronicity, discontinuity, and ambiguity, which…

  9. Learning to Mean in Spanish Writing: A Case Study of a Genre-Based Pedagogy for Standards-Based Writing Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Troyan, Francis J.

    2016-01-01

    This case study reports the results of a genre-based approach, which was used to explicitly teach the touristic landmark description to fourth-grade students of Spanish as a foreign language. The instructional model and unit of instruction were informed by the pedagogies of the Sydney School of Linguistics and an instructional model for…

  10. Using the SIOP Model for Effective Content Teaching with Second and Foreign Language Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kareva, Veronika; Echevarria, Jana

    2013-01-01

    In this paper we present a comprehensive model of instruction for providing consistent, high quality teaching to L2 students. This model, the SIOP Model (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol), provides an explicit framework for organizing instructional practices to optimize the effectiveness of teaching second and foreign language learners.…

  11. Learning to Express Gratitude in Mandarin Chinese through Web-Based Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yang, Li

    2016-01-01

    This study explored the effectiveness of a self-access website as a tool to teach expressions of gratitude to learners of Mandarin Chinese. The web-based instruction included explicit instruction on how to express gratitude appropriately in Mandarin and various consciousness-raising exercises/activities. Two groups of learners who differed in…

  12. Small-Group Instruction: Theory and Practice.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Olmstead, Joseph A.

    The volume is an analysis of the state of the art of small-group methods of instruction. It describes some of the more commonly used small-group techniques and the rationale behind them, and provides an analysis of their potential use for various types and conditions of instructional environments. Explicit guidelines are provided to assist…

  13. Impacts of Contextual and Explicit Instruction on Preservice Elementary Teachers' Understandings of the Nature of Science

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bell, Randy L.; Matkins, Juanita Jo; Gansneder, Bruce M.

    2011-01-01

    This mixed-methods investigation compared the relative impacts of instructional approach and context of nature of science instruction on preservice elementary teachers' understandings. The sample consisted of 75 preservice teachers enrolled in four sections of an elementary science methods course. Independent variables included instructional…

  14. Teacher Talk: One Teacher's Reflections during Comprehension Strategies Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robertson, Dana A.

    2013-01-01

    This study examined one tutor's evolving use of particular talk moves during comprehension strategies instruction in a university-based clinical setting. Through engaging in audiotape reflection and transcript analysis with a coach, the tutor made shifts toward more explicit and purposeful strategies instruction, yet did not consistently…

  15. A Case Study in Using Explicit Instruction to Teach Young Children Counting Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hinton, Vanessa; Stroizer, Shaunita; Flores, Margaret

    2015-01-01

    Number sense is one's ability to understand what numbers mean, perform mental mathematics, and look at the world and make comparisons. Researchers show instruction that teaches children how to classify numbers, put numbers in sequence, conserve numbers effectively, and count builds their number sense skills. Targeted instruction that teaches…

  16. Minds-on and Hands-on Activity: Improving Instruction in Science for All Students. Presidential Address, 1995.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Andre, Thomas

    1997-01-01

    Reviews evidence on gender inequities in science education and gender differences in "ways of knowing" and argues that making science instruction more effective can promote greater equity. Describes a conceptual change approach to science instruction that explicitly activates students' preexisting conceptions and misconceptions and helps students…

  17. Explicit Reflective Nature of Science Instruction: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Umbrellaology

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Scharmann, Lawrence C.; Smith, Mike U.; James, Mark C.; Jensen, Murray

    2005-01-01

    The investigators sought to design an instructional unit to enhance an understanding of the nature of science (NOS) by taking into account both instructional best practices and suggestions made by noted science philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in a course, "Laboratory Techniques in the Teaching of Science,"…

  18. Representational Issues in Systemic Functional Grammar and Systemic Grammar and Functional Unification Grammar. ISI Reprint Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Matthiessen, Christian; Kasper, Robert

    Consisting of two separate papers, "Representational Issues in Systemic Functional Grammar," by Christian Matthiessen and "Systemic Grammar and Functional Unification Grammar," by Robert Kasper, this document deals with systemic aspects of natural language processing and linguistic theory and with computational applications of…

  19. Effects of Explicit Instruction in Cognitive and Metacognitive Reading Strategies on Iranian EFL Students' Reading Performance and Strategy Transfer

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Aghaie, Reza; Zhang, Lawrence Jun

    2012-01-01

    This study explored the impact of explicit teaching of reading strategies on English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students' reading performance in Iran. The study employed a questionnaire adapted from Chamot and O'Malley's (1994) cognitive and metacognitive strategies framework. To test the effects of explicit teaching of cognitive and…

  20. The Effects of Explicit Spelling Instruction in the Spanish EFL Classroom: Diagnosis, Development and Durability

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Canado, Maria Luisa Perez

    2006-01-01

    This paper aims to shed light on the explicit-implicit paradigm contention in connection with the foreign language area of English spelling. To this end, it frames the subject against the backdrop of the prolonged dispute between implicit, whole language, top-down, or whole-to-part approaches and explicit, traditional, bottom-up, or part-to-whole…

  1. Exploration of picture grammars, grammar learning, and inductive logic programming for image understanding

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ducksbury, P. G.; Kennedy, C.; Lock, Z.

    2003-09-01

    Grammars have been used for the formal specification of programming languages, and there are a number of commercial products which now use grammars. However, these have tended to be focused mainly on flow control type applications. In this paper, we consider the potential use of picture grammars and inductive logic programming in generic image understanding applications, such as object recognition. A number of issues are considered, such as what type of grammar needs to be used, how to construct the grammar with its associated attributes, difficulties encountered with parsing grammars followed by issues of automatically learning grammars using a genetic algorithm. The concept of inductive logic programming is then introduced as a method that can overcome some of the earlier difficulties.

  2. Does Supplemental Instruction Support the Transition from Spanish to English Reading Instruction for First-Grade English Learners at Risk of Reading Difficulties?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baker, Doris Luft; Burns, Darci; Kame'enui, Edward J.; Smolkowski, Keith; Baker, Scott King

    2016-01-01

    This study examines the effect of 30 min of small group explicit instruction on reading outcomes for first-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) at risk of reading difficulties. Participants were 78 ELs from seven schools who were receiving Spanish only, or Spanish and English, whole group reading instruction in first grade. Students were…

  3. Should Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Include the Cost of Consumption Activities? AN Empirical Investigation.

    PubMed

    Adarkwah, Charles Christian; Sadoghi, Amirhossein; Gandjour, Afschin

    2016-02-01

    There has been a debate on whether cost-effectiveness analysis should consider the cost of consumption and leisure time activities when using the quality-adjusted life year as a measure of health outcome under a societal perspective. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the effects of ill health on consumptive activities are spontaneously considered in a health state valuation exercise and how much this matters. The survey enrolled patients with inflammatory bowel disease in Germany (n = 104). Patients were randomized to explicit and no explicit instruction for the consideration of consumption and leisure effects in a time trade-off (TTO) exercise. Explicit instruction to consider non-health-related utility in TTO exercises did not influence TTO scores. However, spontaneous consideration of non-health-related utility in patients without explicit instruction (60% of respondents) led to significantly lower TTO scores. Results suggest an inclusion of consumption costs in the numerator of the cost-effectiveness ratio, at least for those respondents who spontaneously consider non-health-related utility from treatment. Results also suggest that exercises eliciting health valuations from the general public may include a description of the impact of disease on consumptive activities. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  4. Teaching Grammar and Testing Grammar in the English Primary School: The Impact on Teachers and Their Teaching of the Grammar Element of the Statutory Test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Safford, Kimberly

    2016-01-01

    The research examined the impact on teachers of the grammar element of a new statutory test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) in primary schools in England. The research aimed to evaluate the nature and the extent of changes to the teaching of grammar and to wider literacy teaching since the introduction of the test in 2013. The research…

  5. Developing Pragmatic Awareness of Suggestions in the EFL Classroom: A Focus on Instructional Effects

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Martinez-Flor, Alicia; Soler, Eva Alcon

    2007-01-01

    The role of instruction to develop learners' pragmatic competence in both second and foreign language contexts has recently motivated a great deal of research. However, most of this research has adopted an explicit instructional approach with only a few studies attempting to operationalise a more implicit condition for pragmatic learning. In order…

  6. Inquiry-Based Instruction and Teaching about Nature of Science: Are They Happening?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Capps, Daniel K.; Crawford, Barbara A.

    2013-01-01

    Anecdotal accounts from science educators suggest that few teachers are teaching science as inquiry. However, there is little empirical evidence to support this claim. This study aimed to provide evidence-based documentation of the state-of-use of inquiry-based instruction and explicit instruction about nature of science (NOS). We examined the…

  7. The Grammar Gallimaufry: Teaching Students to Challenge the Grammar Gods

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    House, Jeff

    2009-01-01

    How a person teaches grammar depends on what he or she believes it does. Some see grammar as a set of rules, inherited from wise forefathers. For them, teaching grammar means making students aware of, and then holding them to, these rules. Others see grammar as an expression of style, an invitation to the writer to explore how to create a…

  8. Efficient Grammar Induction Algorithm with Parse Forests from Real Corpora

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kurihara, Kenichi; Kameya, Yoshitaka; Sato, Taisuke

    The task of inducing grammar structures has received a great deal of attention. The reasons why researchers have studied are different; to use grammar induction as the first stage in building large treebanks or to make up better language models. However, grammar induction has inherent computational complexity. To overcome it, some grammar induction algorithms add new production rules incrementally. They refine the grammar while keeping their computational complexity low. In this paper, we propose a new efficient grammar induction algorithm. Although our algorithm is similar to algorithms which learn a grammar incrementally, our algorithm uses the graphical EM algorithm instead of the Inside-Outside algorithm. We report results of learning experiments in terms of learning speeds. The results show that our algorithm learns a grammar in constant time regardless of the size of the grammar. Since our algorithm decreases syntactic ambiguities in each step, our algorithm reduces required time for learning. This constant-time learning considerably affects learning time for larger grammars. We also reports results of evaluation of criteria to choose nonterminals. Our algorithm refines a grammar based on a nonterminal in each step. Since there can be several criteria to decide which nonterminal is the best, we evaluate them by learning experiments.

  9. [A qualitative analysis of spelling mistakes and a systematic supportive learning instruction of spelling disorder].

    PubMed

    Corvacho Del Toro, Irene M

    2016-09-01

    This paper explains how a qualitative analysis of spelling mistakes (Oldenburger Fehleranalyse, Thomé & Thomé, 2014) may be used to select learning materials according to individual needs. The pre-post design with control group serves to evaluate the effects of an intervention that is systematic and learning supportive for pupils with a diagnosed spelling disorder (ages 12 to 14; 6th-8th grade). Therapists of the experimental group were instructed to apply a series of linguistic and psycholinguistic criteria when creating the material for instruction and when carrying out the therapy. Therapists of the control group carried out the intervention without attending to these criteria, although they did have knowledge about the pupil’s profile in spelling mistakes. The intervention included 20 sessions. The ANOVA shows improvement for both groups (HSP, May 2012): (F(1, 14) = 15,05, p = .002, η2 = .518). For the experimental group it is stronger, and the difference in achievement gain is significant (F(1, 14) = 4,70, p = .048; η2 = .25). These results support a combination of qualitative analysis and a high qualification for therapists that relates specifically to orthography and its instruction. For some pupils the changes in the qualitative profiles reveal persistent support requirements in phonology or grammar instruction.

  10. Implicit memory in music and language.

    PubMed

    Ettlinger, Marc; Margulis, Elizabeth H; Wong, Patrick C M

    2011-01-01

    Research on music and language in recent decades has focused on their overlapping neurophysiological, perceptual, and cognitive underpinnings, ranging from the mechanism for encoding basic auditory cues to the mechanism for detecting violations in phrase structure. These overlaps have most often been identified in musicians with musical knowledge that was acquired explicitly, through formal training. In this paper, we review independent bodies of work in music and language that suggest an important role for implicitly acquired knowledge, implicit memory, and their associated neural structures in the acquisition of linguistic or musical grammar. These findings motivate potential new work that examines music and language comparatively in the context of the implicit memory system.

  11. Teaching Scientific Reasoning to Liberal Arts Students

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Rubbo, Louis

    2014-03-01

    University courses in conceptual physics and astronomy typically serve as the terminal science experience for the liberal arts student. Within this population significant content knowledge gains can be achieved by utilizing research verified pedagogical methods. However, from the standpoint of the Univeristy, students are expected to complete these courses not necessarily for the content knowledge but instead for the development of scientific reasoning skills. Results from physics education studies indicate that unless scientific reasoning instruction is made explicit students do not progress in their reasoning abilities. How do we complement the successful content based pedagogical methods with instruction that explicitly focuses on the development of scientific reasoning skills? This talk will explore methodologies that actively engages the non-science students with the explicit intent of fostering their scientific reasoning abilities.

  12. Teaching Nature of Science to K-2 Students: What understandings can they attain?

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Akerson, Valarie; Donnelly, Lisa A.

    2010-01-01

    This study explored the influence of a Saturday Science program that used explicit reflective instruction through contextualized and decontextualized guided and authentic inquiry on K-2 students' views of nature of science (NOS). The six-week program ran for 2.5 hours weekly and emphasized NOS in a variety of science content areas, culminating in an authentic inquiry designed and carried out by the K-2 students. The Views of Nature of Science Form D was used to interview K-2 students pre- and post-instruction. Copies of student work were retained for content analysis. Videotapes made of each week's science instruction were reviewed to ensure that explicit reflective NOS instruction took place. Explicit NOS teaching strategies included (1) introducing NOS through decontextualized activities, (2) embedding NOS into science content through contextualized activities, (3) using children's literature, (4) debriefings and embedded NOS assessments, and (5) guided and student-designed inquiries. Results indicate that K-2 students improved their NOS views over the course of the program, suggesting that they are developmentally ready for these concepts. Students developed adequate views of the distinction between observation and inference, the creative NOS, the tentative NOS, the empirical NOS, and to a lesser degree, the subjective NOS.

  13. Teaching Grammar

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crawford, William J.

    2013-01-01

    Grammar is a component in all language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Teachers need to know rules of grammar (teacher knowledge) as well as techniques that help students use grammar effectively and effortlessly (teaching knowledge). Using reflective practice to help teachers become comfortable with teaching grammar, this…

  14. Working Memory Capacity Limits Motor Learning When Implementing Multiple Instructions

    PubMed Central

    Buszard, Tim; Farrow, Damian; Verswijveren, Simone J. J. M.; Reid, Machar; Williams, Jacqueline; Polman, Remco; Ling, Fiona Chun Man; Masters, Rich S. W.

    2017-01-01

    Although it is generally accepted that certain practice conditions can place large demands on working memory (WM) when performing and learning a motor skill, the influence that WM capacity has on the acquisition of motor skills remains unsubstantiated. This study examined the role of WM capacity in a motor skill practice context that promoted WM involvement through the provision of explicit instructions. A cohort of 90 children aged 8 to 10 years were assessed on measures of WM capacity and attention. Children who scored in the lowest and highest thirds on the WM tasks were allocated to lower WM capacity (n = 24) and higher WM capacity (n = 24) groups, respectively. The remaining 42 participants did not participate in the motor task. The motor task required children to practice basketball shooting for 240 trials in blocks of 20 shots, with pre- and post-tests occurring before and after the intervention. A retention test was administered 1 week after the post-test. Prior to every practice block, children were provided with five explicit instructions that were specific to the technique of shooting a basketball. Results revealed that the higher WM capacity group displayed consistent improvements from pre- to post-test and through to the retention test, while the opposite effect occurred in the lower WM capacity group. This implies that the explicit instructions had a negative influence on learning by the lower WM capacity children. Results are discussed in relation to strategy selection for dealing with instructions and the role of attention control. PMID:28878701

  15. Deoxyribonucleic Acid and Other Words Students Avoid Speaking Aloud: Evaluating the Role of Pronunciation on Participation in Secondary School Science Classroom Conversations

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Beck, Stacie Elizabeth

    Student's verbal participation in science classrooms is an essential element in building the skills necessary for proficiency in scientific literacy and discourse. The myriad of new, multisyllabic vocabulary terms introduced in one year of secondary school biology instruction can overwhelm students and further impede the self-efficacy needed for concise constructions of scientific explanations and arguments. Factors inhibiting students' inclination to answer questions, share ideas and respond to peers in biology classrooms include confidence and self-perceived competence in appropriately speaking the language of science. Providing students with explicit, engaging instruction in methods to develop vocabulary for use in expressing conclusions is critical for expanding comprehension of science concepts. This study fused the recommended strategies for engaging vocabulary instruction with linguistic practices for teaching pronunciation to examine the relationship between a student's ability to pronounce challenging bio-terminology and their propensity to speak in teacher-led, guided classroom discussions. Interviews, surveys, and measurements quantifying and qualifying students' participation in class discussions before and after explicit instruction in pronunciation were used to evaluate the potential of this strategy as an appropriate tool for increasing students' self-efficacy and willingness to engage in biology classroom conversations. The findings of this study showed a significant increase in student verbal participation in classroom discussions after explicit instruction in pronunciation combined with vocabulary literacy strategies. This research also showed an increase in the use of vocabulary words in student comments after the intervention.

  16. Constraining Multiple Grammars

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hopp, Holger

    2014-01-01

    This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammars (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue. Multiple Grammars advances the claim that optionality is a constitutive characteristic of any one grammar, with interlanguage grammars being perhaps the clearest examples of a…

  17. Moving beyond the Page in Content Area Literacy: Comprehension Instruction for Multimodal Texts in Science

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wilson, Amy Alexandra

    2008-01-01

    Using a science lesson on lunar phases as a basis for discussion, the author suggests ways that teachers can provide literacy instruction on multimodal texts in science. The author asserts that multiple representations are central to the discipline of science, and that students require explicit instruction on how to critically read, evaluate, and…

  18. The Effects of L2 Proficiency on Pragmatics Instruction: A Web-Based Approach to Teaching Chinese Expressions of Gratitude

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yang, Li

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated whether the effects of pragmatics instruction delivered via a self-access website in a Chinese as a foreign language learning environment vary according to learners' language proficiency. The website provided learners with explicit instruction in how to express gratitude appropriately in Chinese and offered them pragmatic…

  19. Marine Technician's Handbook, Instructions for Taking Air Samples on Board Ship: Carbon Dioxide Project.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Keeling, Charles D.

    This booklet is one of a series intended to provide explicit instructions for the collection of oceanographic data and samples at sea. The methods and procedures described have been used by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and found reliable and up-to-date. Instructions are given for taking air samples on board ship to determine the…

  20. Comparing the Effects of Four Instructional Treatments on EFL Students' Achievement in Writing Classified Ads

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Khodabandeh, Farzaneh

    2016-01-01

    The current study set out to compare the effect of traditional and non-traditional instructional treatments; i.e. explicit, implicit, task-based and no-instruction approaches on students' abilities to learn how to write classified ads. 72 junior students who have all taken a course in Reading Journalistic Texts at the Payame-Noor University…

  1. Effectiveness of Supplemental Kindergarten Vocabulary Instruction for English Learners: A Randomized Study of Immediate and Longer-Term Effects of Two Approaches

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vadasy, Patricia F.; Sanders, Elizabeth A.; Nelson, J. Ron

    2015-01-01

    A two-cohort cluster randomized trial was conducted to estimate effects of small-group supplemental vocabulary instruction for at-risk kindergarten English learners (ELs). "Connections" students received explicit instruction in high-frequency decodable root words, and interactive book reading (IBR) students were taught the same words in…

  2. The Relationships between Leadership Practice and Teacher Motivation, Capacity, and Work Setting as Related to Change in Literacy Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baker, Linda Marie

    2011-01-01

    Recent studies have indicated the necessity for changes in literacy assessment and instruction. Well respected authorities have agreed that direct, explicit, and systematic instruction in the five basic components of reading (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension) is essential to ensure that all students have an…

  3. A Multi-Year Program Developing an Explicit Reflective Pedagogy for Teaching Pre-service Teachers the Nature of Science by Ostention

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Smith, Mike U.; Scharmann, Lawrence

    2008-02-01

    This investigation delineates a multi-year action research agenda designed to develop an instructional model for teaching the nature of science (NOS) to preservice science teachers. Our past research strongly supports the use of explicit reflective instructional methods, which includes Thomas Kuhn’s notion of learning by ostention and treating science as a continuum (i.e., comparing fields of study to one another for relative placement as less to more scientific). Instruction based on conceptual change precepts, however, also exhibits promise. Thus, the investigators sought to ascertain the degree to which conceptual change took place among students (n = 15) participating in the NOS instructional model. Three case studies are presented to illustrate successful conceptual changes that took place as a result of the NOS instructional model. All three cases represent students who claim a very conservative Christian heritage and for whom evolution was not considered a legitimate scientific theory prior to participating in the NOS instructional model. All three case study individuals, along with their twelve classmates, placed evolution as most scientific when compared to intelligent design and a fictional field of study called “Umbrellaology.”

  4. The influence of explicit versus implicit instructional approaches during a technology-based curriculum on students' understanding of nature of science (NOS)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Al-Saidi, Ahmed Mohammad

    The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of an explicit versus an implicit instructional approach during technology-based curriculum on students' understanding of the nature of science (NOS) within an introductory biology course. The study emphasized the inferential and tentative nature of science. The intervention or explicit group was involved in inquiry activities followed by discussions that were directly geared towards the target aspects of NOS. The implicit group was engaged in the same activities but received instruction devoid of direct reference to the NOS aspects. Students in both groups spent identical amount of time on task. Selected items of the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS) together with semi-structured interviews were used to evaluate students' NOS conceptions before and at the end of the intervention, which lasted two weeks. A quantitative analysis using chi-square of students' pre-intervention NOS views as provided by the VNOS questionnaires revealed that there was not a statistically significant difference between implicit and explicit groups in both targeted NOS aspects, with (p = 0.18) and (p = 0.34) for inferential and tentative NOS, respectively. However the same analysis indicated statistical significance difference for post-intervention between implicit and explicit groups, yielding (p < 0.02) and (p < 0.002) for both inferential and tentative NOS, respectively. A qualitative analysis of students' pre and post-intervention views of the target aspects of NOS as well as semi-structured interviews for both groups was also conducted. Before intervention, the number of informed NOS responses in both groups was not considerably different. However, analysis of post-intervention NOS views indicated that more students in the explicit group demonstrated informed views of the NOS aspects than in the implicit group. Therefore, the analysis of the data indicated that, in this particular study, engaging students in inquiry-based activities followed by explicit discussion that is geared toward NOS aspects was more effective than merely involving them in implicit, inquiry-based instruction. The imperative finding of the present study provides evidence that teaching the NOS could be achieved through short-intensive discussion and does not necessarily require separate and independent courses.

  5. La Grammaire: Lectures (Grammar: Readings).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Arrive, Michel; Chevalier, Jean-Claude

    A historical perspective of French grammar is developed in this chronologically arranged reader. Part One includes material on French grammar from the 16th to the 19th century: (1) the "Premiere Epoque": 1530-1660, (2) the general grammar of Port-Royal, and (3) the "philosophical grammars" treating syntax, sentence structure, and discourse…

  6. What English Teachers Need to Know about Grammar.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Murdick, William

    1996-01-01

    Suggests that English teachers need to know that grammar is a difficult subject; know what children know about grammar; know that grammatical error is complex; and know more about language than just grammar. Concludes with the advice of Noam Chomsky--that grammar should be taught for its own intrinsic interest. (RS)

  7. Implementation of a Natural Language Processor Using Functional Grammar.

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1985-12-01

    in a completely different manner. [Ref. 5:pp. 81-883 ; "C. CASE GRAMMAR When Chomsky published his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 0 many linguists...approach was developed at Stanford University .[Ref. 7:pp. 187-2473 E. FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR Shortly after Transformational Grammar and Case Grammar ... Grammar is a radical approach to linguistic theory when looked at from the Chomsky point of view. However, it compares favorably with the traditional

  8. The Role of Simple Semantics in the Process of Artificial Grammar Learning.

    PubMed

    Öttl, Birgit; Jäger, Gerhard; Kaup, Barbara

    2017-10-01

    This study investigated the effect of semantic information on artificial grammar learning (AGL). Recursive grammars of different complexity levels (regular language, mirror language, copy language) were investigated in a series of AGL experiments. In the with-semantics condition, participants acquired semantic information prior to the AGL experiment; in the without-semantics control condition, participants did not receive semantic information. It was hypothesized that semantics would generally facilitate grammar acquisition and that the learning benefit in the with-semantics conditions would increase with increasing grammar complexity. Experiment 1 showed learning effects for all grammars but no performance difference between conditions. Experiment 2 replicated the absence of a semantic benefit for all grammars even though semantic information was more prominent during grammar acquisition as compared to Experiment 1. Thus, we did not find evidence for the idea that semantics facilitates grammar acquisition, which seems to support the view of an independent syntactic processing component.

  9. A new variant of Petri net controlled grammars

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Jan, Nurhidaya Mohamad; Turaev, Sherzod; Fong, Wan Heng; Sarmin, Nor Haniza

    2015-10-01

    A Petri net controlled grammar is a Petri net with respect to a context-free grammar where the successful derivations of the grammar can be simulated using the occurrence sequences of the net. In this paper, we introduce a new variant of Petri net controlled grammars, called a place-labeled Petri net controlled grammar, which is a context-free grammar equipped with a Petri net and a function which maps places of the net to productions of the grammar. The language consists of all terminal strings that can be obtained by parallelly applying multisets of the rules which are the images of the sets of the input places of transitions in a successful occurrence sequence of the Petri net. We study the effect of the different labeling strategies to the computational power and establish lower and upper bounds for the generative capacity of place-labeled Petri net controlled grammars.

  10. Metacognitive instruction in middle school science

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Bonney, Dianna

    The purpose of this action research project was to determine the extent to which metacognitive instruction affected students' performance in the middle-grade science classroom. Conducted with four seventh grade science classes over a three-month time period, 105 students were engaged in 21 metacognitively enhanced lessons. Both quantitative and qualitative data sources were collected for this study and analyzed according to grounded theory methodology. Quantitative data came from the Jr. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory, administered as a pre-post test. Qualitative teacher-generated data was collected in a metacognitive observation protocol containing observations and reflections while student-generated data was gathered from reflective journal entries, modified rubrics, and checklists. Analysis of the data led to the assertions that metacognitive development occurred over time through systematic and varied implementation of explicit instruction. In addition, students perceived they learned best both when working collaboratively and when making multiple connections with content material. Implications for middle-grade teachers include the need for explicit instruction of metacognitive strategies, providing for instructional variation and student collaboration, and guiding students in making connections to prior learning.

  11. Swahili Learners' Reference Grammar. African Language Learners' Reference Grammar Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thompson, Katrina Daly; Schleicher, Antonia Folarin

    This reference grammar is written for speakers of English who are learning Swahili. Because many language learners are not familiar with the grammatical terminology, this book explains the basic terminology and concepts of English grammar that are necessary for understanding the grammar of Swahili. It assumes no formal knowledge of English grammar…

  12. Effective Grammar Teaching: Lessons from Confident Grammar Teachers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Petraki, Eleni; Hill, Deborah

    2011-01-01

    Learning the grammar of a language is an integral part of learning a second or foreign language. Studies on teacher beliefs, teacher language awareness (TLA) and grammar teaching have reported that the majority of English language teachers recognise the importance of teaching grammar (Borg, 2001; Borg & Burns, 2008). At the same time, many…

  13. Transfer of Nature of Science Understandings into Similar Contexts: Promises and Possibilities of an Explicit Reflective Approach

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Khishfe, Rola

    2013-11-01

    The purpose of this study was to (a) investigate the effectiveness of explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction in the context of controversial socioscientific issues and (b) explore whether the transfer of acquired NOS understandings, which were explicitly taught in the context of one socioscientific context, into other similar contexts (familiar and unfamiliar) was possible. Participants were 10th grade students in two intact sections at one high school. The treatment involved teaching a six-week unit about genetic engineering. For one group (non-NOS group), there was no explicit instruction about NOS. For the other group (NOS group), explicit instruction about three NOS aspects (subjective, empirical, and tentative) was dispersed across the genetic engineering unit. A questionnaire including two open-ended scenarios, in conjunction with semi-structured interviews, was used to assess the change in participants' understandings of NOS and their ability to transfer their acquired understandings into similar contexts. The first scenario involved a familiar context about genetically modified food and the second one focused on an unfamiliar context about water fluoridation. Results showed no improvement in NOS understandings of participants in the non-NOS group in relation to the familiar and unfamiliar contexts. On the other hand, there was a general improvement in the NOS understandings of participants in the NOS group in relation to both the familiar and unfamiliar contexts. Implications about the transfer of participants' acquired NOS understandings on the basis of the distance between the context of learning and that of application are highlighted and discussed in link with the classroom learning environment.

  14. Teaching Communication Skills in Science: Tracing Teacher Change

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Spektor-Levy, Ornit; Eylon, Bat-Sheva; Scherz, Zahava

    2008-01-01

    This paper describes a general model for skills instruction and its implementation through the program "Scientific Communication" for acquiring learning skills. The model is characterized by modularity, explicit instruction, spiral integration into contents, practice in various contexts, and implementation in performance tasks. It requires…

  15. Improving text comprehension: scaffolding adolescents into strategic reading.

    PubMed

    Ukrainetz, Teresa A

    2015-02-01

    Understanding and learning from academic texts involves purposeful, strategic reading. Adolescent readers, particularly poor readers, benefit from explicit instruction in text comprehension strategies, such as text preview, summarization, and comprehension monitoring, as part of a comprehensive reading program. However, strategies are difficult to teach within subject area lessons where content instruction must take primacy. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have the expertise and service delivery options to support middle and high school students in learning to use comprehension strategies in their academic reading and learning. This article presents the research evidence on what strategies to teach and how best to teach them, including the use of explicit instruction, spoken interactions around text, cognitive modeling, peer learning, classroom connections, and disciplinary literacy. The article focuses on how to move comprehension strategies from being teaching tools of the SLP to becoming learning tools of the student. SLPs can provide the instruction and support needed for students to learn and apply of this important component of academic reading. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

  16. Proceedings of a Conference--"The Future of Grammar in American Schools" (Winchester, VA, August 10-11, 1990).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL. Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar.

    Providing alternatives to the way grammar is taught, this proceedings includes every paper (or summary) except one delivered at a conference on the future of grammar in American schools. Papers in the proceedings are: "Keynote: The Future of Grammar in American Schools" (Martha Kolln); "Approaches to Grammar: Teaching &…

  17. Understanding the Complex Processes in Developing Student Teachers' Knowledge about Grammar

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Svalberg, Agneta M.-L.

    2015-01-01

    This article takes the view that grammar is driven by user choices and is therefore complex and dynamic. This has implications for the teaching of grammar in language teacher education and how teachers' cognitions about grammar, and hence their own grammar teaching, might change. In this small, interpretative study, the participants--students on…

  18. A Low-Power Instruction Issue Queue for Microprocessors

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Watanabe, Shingo; Chiyonobu, Akihiro; Sato, Toshinori

    Instruction issue queue is a key component which extracts instruction level parallelism (ILP) in modern out-of-order microprocessors. In order to exploit ILP for improving processor performance, instruction queue size should be increased. However, it is difficult to increase the size, since instruction queue is implemented by a content addressable memory (CAM) whose power and delay are much large. This paper introduces a low power and scalable instruction queue that replaces the CAM with a RAM. In this queue, instructions are explicitly woken up. Evaluation results show that the proposed instruction queue decreases processor performance by only 1.9% on average. Furthermore, the total energy consumption is reduced by 54% on average.

  19. The Effects of Communicative Grammar Teaching on Students' Achievement of Grammatical Knowledge and Oral Production

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ho, Pham Vu Phi; The Binh, Nguyen

    2014-01-01

    So far the students of Le Hong Phong Junior High School have been taught grammar with GTM (Grammar-Translation Method), which just prepares learners for conventional grammar-paper tests. Despite their considerable knowledge of grammar, the students fail to use the language they have learnt to communicate in real-life situations. The purpose of…

  20. Application of grammar-based codes for lossless compression of digital mammograms

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Li, Xiaoli; Krishnan, Srithar; Ma, Ngok-Wah

    2006-01-01

    A newly developed grammar-based lossless source coding theory and its implementation was proposed in 1999 and 2000, respectively, by Yang and Kieffer. The code first transforms the original data sequence into an irreducible context-free grammar, which is then compressed using arithmetic coding. In the study of grammar-based coding for mammography applications, we encountered two issues: processing time and limited number of single-character grammar G variables. For the first issue, we discover a feature that can simplify the matching subsequence search in the irreducible grammar transform process. Using this discovery, an extended grammar code technique is proposed and the processing time of the grammar code can be significantly reduced. For the second issue, we propose to use double-character symbols to increase the number of grammar variables. Under the condition that all the G variables have the same probability of being used, our analysis shows that the double- and single-character approaches have the same compression rates. By using the methods proposed, we show that the grammar code can outperform three other schemes: Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW), arithmetic, and Huffman on compression ratio, and has similar error tolerance capabilities as LZW coding under similar circumstances.

  1. Something Old Is New Again: Revisiting Language Experience

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dorr, Roberta E.

    2006-01-01

    Children arrive in classrooms with varied background knowledge, which means that teachers must select instructional methods, materials, and techniques to meet multiple needs. A carefully planned approach that includes direct and explicit instruction--as well as extensive opportunities for reading, writing, speaking, and listening--can help…

  2. Teaching Reading Sourcebook, Second Edition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Honig, Bill; Diamond, Linda; Gutlohn, Linda

    2008-01-01

    The "Teaching Reading Sourcebook, Second Edition" is a comprehensive reference about reading instruction. Organized according to the elements of explicit instruction (what? why? when? and how?), the "Sourcebook" includes both a research-informed knowledge base and practical sample lesson models. It teaches the key elements of an effective reading…

  3. Does Discovery-Based Instruction Enhance Learning?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alfieri, Louis; Brooks, Patricia J.; Aldrich, Naomi J.; Tenenbaum, Harriet R.

    2011-01-01

    Discovery learning approaches to education have recently come under scrutiny (Tobias & Duffy, 2009), with many studies indicating limitations to discovery learning practices. Therefore, 2 meta-analyses were conducted using a sample of 164 studies: The 1st examined the effects of unassisted discovery learning versus explicit instruction, and the…

  4. Do Sixth-Grade Writers Need Process Strategies?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Torrance, Mark; Fidalgo, Raquel; Robledo, Patricia

    2015-01-01

    Background: Strategy-focused writing instruction trains students both to set explicit product goals and to adopt specific procedural strategies, particularly for planning text. A number of studies have demonstrated that strategy-focused writing instruction is effective in developing writing performance. Aim: This study aimed to determine whether…

  5. Implicit Memory in Music and Language

    PubMed Central

    Ettlinger, Marc; Margulis, Elizabeth H.; Wong, Patrick C. M.

    2011-01-01

    Research on music and language in recent decades has focused on their overlapping neurophysiological, perceptual, and cognitive underpinnings, ranging from the mechanism for encoding basic auditory cues to the mechanism for detecting violations in phrase structure. These overlaps have most often been identified in musicians with musical knowledge that was acquired explicitly, through formal training. In this paper, we review independent bodies of work in music and language that suggest an important role for implicitly acquired knowledge, implicit memory, and their associated neural structures in the acquisition of linguistic or musical grammar. These findings motivate potential new work that examines music and language comparatively in the context of the implicit memory system. PMID:21927608

  6. Searching for Components of Conceptual Ecology That Mediate Development of Epistemological Beliefs in Science

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Deniz, Hasan

    2011-12-01

    This paper articulates the importance of epistemological beliefs (EBs) and draws a parallel between EBs literature in educational psychology and nature of science (NOS) literature in science education. The paper stresses that EBs in science and NOS ideas have common ground and they can be best improved through explicit-reflective instruction informed by conceptual change theory. The paper concludes that future studies should explore the factors that mediate the development of EBs in science and NOS ideas rather than documenting the changes in students' and teachers' EBs in science and NOS ideas after explicit-reflective instruction through pre- and post assessments.

  7. Designing a Constraint Based Parser for Sanskrit

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kulkarni, Amba; Pokar, Sheetal; Shukl, Devanand

    Verbal understanding (śā bdabodha) of any utterance requires the knowledge of how words in that utterance are related to each other. Such knowledge is usually available in the form of cognition of grammatical relations. Generative grammars describe how a language codes these relations. Thus the knowledge of what information various grammatical relations convey is available from the generation point of view and not the analysis point of view. In order to develop a parser based on any grammar one should then know precisely the semantic content of the grammatical relations expressed in a language string, the clues for extracting these relations and finally whether these relations are expressed explicitly or implicitly. Based on the design principles that emerge from this knowledge, we model the parser as finding a directed Tree, given a graph with nodes representing the words and edges representing the possible relations between them. Further, we also use the Mīmā ṃsā constraint of ākā ṅkṣā (expectancy) to rule out non-solutions and sannidhi (proximity) to prioritize the solutions. We have implemented a parser based on these principles and its performance was found to be satisfactory giving us a confidence to extend its functionality to handle the complex sentences.

  8. Design of Spiking Central Pattern Generators for Multiple Locomotion Gaits in Hexapod Robots by Christiansen Grammar Evolution

    PubMed Central

    Espinal, Andres; Rostro-Gonzalez, Horacio; Carpio, Martin; Guerra-Hernandez, Erick I.; Ornelas-Rodriguez, Manuel; Sotelo-Figueroa, Marco

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents a method to design Spiking Central Pattern Generators (SCPGs) to achieve locomotion at different frequencies on legged robots. It is validated through embedding its designs into a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and implemented on a real hexapod robot. The SCPGs are automatically designed by means of a Christiansen Grammar Evolution (CGE)-based methodology. The CGE performs a solution for the configuration (synaptic weights and connections) for each neuron in the SCPG. This is carried out through the indirect representation of candidate solutions that evolve to replicate a specific spike train according to a locomotion pattern (gait) by measuring the similarity between the spike trains and the SPIKE distance to lead the search to a correct configuration. By using this evolutionary approach, several SCPG design specifications can be explicitly added into the SPIKE distance-based fitness function, such as looking for Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) with minimal connectivity or a Central Pattern Generator (CPG) able to generate different locomotion gaits only by changing the initial input stimuli. The SCPG designs have been successfully implemented on a Spartan 6 FPGA board and a real time validation on a 12 Degrees Of Freedom (DOFs) hexapod robot is presented. PMID:27516737

  9. Translating Expertise into Effective Instruction: The Impacts of Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) on Lab Report Quality and Student Retention in the Biological Sciences

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Feldon, David F.; Timmerman, Briana Crotwell; Stowe, Kirk A.; Showman, Richard

    2010-01-01

    Poor instruction has been cited as a primary cause of attrition from STEM majors and a major obstacle to learning for those who stay [Seymour and Hewitt [1997]. Talking about leaving: Why undergraduates leave the sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview]. Using a double-blind design, this study tests the hypothesis that the lack of explicit instructions in…

  10. What Do Beginning Special Educators Need to Know about Intensive Reading Interventions?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coyne, Michael D.; Koriakin, Taylor A.

    2017-01-01

    Evidence based reading instruction and intervention are essential for students with disabilities. The authors recommend that elementary special education teachers emphasize both code-based and meaning-based skills as part of delivering intensive reading interventions, including providing explicit and systematic decoding and vocabulary instruction.…

  11. Readers, Instruction, and the NRP

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wilson, G. Pat; Martens, Prisca; Arya, Poonam; Altwerger, Bess

    2004-01-01

    Are programs that emphasize systematic phonics instruction truly superior to other types of programs for young readers, as the National Reading Panel claims? The authors conducted a study of three different programs to see what kinds of readers are actually emerging from them. Two were commercial programs that used explicit and systematic phonics…

  12. Effects of Blended Instructional Models on Math Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bottge, Brian A.; Ma, Xin; Gassaway, Linda; Toland, Michael D.; Butler, Mark; Cho, Sun-Joo

    2014-01-01

    A pretest-posttest cluster-randomized trial involving 31 middle schools and 335 students with disabilities tested the effects of combining explicit and anchored instruction on fraction computation and problem solving. Results of standardized and researcher-developed tests showed that students who were taught with the blended units outscored…

  13. Learning to Write with Interactive Writing Instruction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Williams, Cheri

    2018-01-01

    Interactive writing is a process-oriented instructional approach designed to make the composing and encoding processes of writing overt and explicit for young students who are learning to write. It is particularly suitable for students who struggle with literacy learning. This article describes one first-grade teacher's use of interactive writing…

  14. Reading Mastery. What Works Clearinghouse Intervention Report

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    What Works Clearinghouse, 2012

    2012-01-01

    "Reading Mastery" is designed to provide explicit reading instruction to students in grades pre-K-5. One of several Direct Instruction curricula from McGraw-Hill, "Reading Mastery" is available in two versions: (1) "Reading Mastery Classic" (for grades pre-K-2) aims to help beginning readers identify letter sounds,…

  15. Lessons on Using Internet.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lemme, Bobbi; Donovan, Terri

    Intended for beginning Internet users and adult basic education instructors, this manual presents a very basic, instructional approach to exploring the Internet, with explicit instructions on what to do, places to go, and interesting things to try. An introduction on getting started is followed by sections on electronic mail, including using the…

  16. ACCESS! Teaching Writing Skills to Students with Intellectual Disability

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cannella-Malone, Helen I.; Konrad, Moira; Pennington, Robert C.

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this article is to provide teachers with tools that they can use to teach written expression to school-age students with intellectual disabilities. These tools are presented around the mnemonic ACCESS: accommodations and assistive technologies, concrete topics, critical skills, explicit instruction, strategy instruction, systematic…

  17. Strategies for Teaching Algebra to Students with Learning Disabilities: Making Research to Practice Connections

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Strickland, Tricia K.; Maccini, Paula

    2010-01-01

    To improve student success in mathematics, the use of research-based interventions is necessary to help secondary students with learning disabilities (LD) access the algebra curriculum. The authors provide an overview of the following research-based approaches: explicit instruction, graduated instructional sequence, technology, and graphic…

  18. Multifaceted NOS Instruction: Contextualizing Nature of Science with Documentary Films

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bloom, Mark; Binns, Ian C.; Koehler, Catherine

    2015-01-01

    This research focuses on inservice science teachers' conceptions of nature of science (NOS) before and after a two-week intensive summer professional development (PD). The PD combined traditional explicit NOS instruction, numerous interactive interventions that highlighted NOS aspects, along with documentary films that portrayed NOS in context of…

  19. Does Tracing Worked Examples Enhance Geometry Learning?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hu, Fang-Tzu; Ginns, Paul; Bobis, Janette

    2014-01-01

    Cognitive load theory seeks to generate novel instructional designs through a focus on human cognitive architecture including a limited working memory; however, the potential for enhancing learning through non-visual or non-auditory working memory channels is yet to be evaluated. This exploratory experiment tested whether explicit instructions to…

  20. Explicit Instructional Interactions: Exploring the Black Box of a Tier 2 Mathematics Intervention

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Doabler, Christian T.; Clarke, Ben; Stoolmiller, Mike; Kosty, Derek B.; Fien, Hank; Smolkowski, Keith; Baker, Scott K.

    2017-01-01

    A critical aspect of intervention research is investigating the active ingredients that underlie intensive interventions and their theories of change. This study explored the rate of instructional interactions within treatment groups to determine whether they offered explanatory power of an empirically validated Tier 2 kindergarten mathematics…

  1. Using High-Probability Instructional Sequences and Explicit Instruction to Teach Multiplication Facts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Leach, Debra

    2016-01-01

    Students with learning disabilities often struggle with math fact fluency and require specialized interventions to recall basic facts. Deficits in math fact fluency can result in later difficulties when learning higher-level mathematical computation, concepts, and problem solving. The response-to-intervention (RTI) and…

  2. Explicit Pre-Training Instruction Does Not Improve Implicit Perceptual-Motor Sequence Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sanchez, Daniel J.; Reber, Paul J.

    2013-01-01

    Memory systems theory argues for separate neural systems supporting implicit and explicit memory in the human brain. Neuropsychological studies support this dissociation, but empirical studies of cognitively healthy participants generally observe that both kinds of memory are acquired to at least some extent, even in implicit learning tasks. A key…

  3. Age and Learning Environment: Are Children Implicit Second Language Learners?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lichtman, Karen

    2016-01-01

    Children are thought to learn second languages (L2s) using primarily implicit mechanisms, in contrast to adults, who primarily rely on explicit language learning. This difference is usually attributed to cognitive maturation, but adults also receive more explicit instruction than children, which may influence their learning strategies. This study…

  4. The Effects of Vocabulary Instructions on Students' Reading Comprehension across Cognitive Styles in ESP

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kusumawati, Eny; Widiati, Utami

    2017-01-01

    Many scholars in language learning and teaching agree that vocabulary plays a vital role in a language learning. However, the way the vocabulary is presented to language learners, whether explicitly or implicitly, becomes central discussion in language literature. This study investigated the effect of explicit and implicit vocabulary instructions…

  5. Phonological Awareness: Explicit Instruction for Young Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Miller, Elizabeth M.; Lederberg, Amy R.; Easterbrooks, Susan R.

    2013-01-01

    The goal of this study was to explore the development of spoken phonological awareness for deaf and hard-of-hearing children (DHH) with functional hearing (i.e., the ability to access spoken language through hearing). Teachers explicitly taught five preschoolers the phonological awareness skills of syllable segmentation, initial phoneme isolation,…

  6. Towards an explicit account of implicit learning.

    PubMed

    Forkstam, Christian; Petersson, Karl Magnus

    2005-08-01

    The human brain supports acquisition mechanisms that can extract structural regularities implicitly from experience without the induction of an explicit model. Reber defined the process by which an individual comes to respond appropriately to the statistical structure of the input ensemble as implicit learning. He argued that the capacity to generalize to new input is based on the acquisition of abstract representations that reflect underlying structural regularities in the acquisition input. We focus this review of the implicit learning literature on studies published during 2004 and 2005. We will not review studies of repetition priming ('implicit memory'). Instead we focus on two commonly used experimental paradigms: the serial reaction time task and artificial grammar learning. Previous comprehensive reviews can be found in Seger's 1994 article and the Handbook of Implicit Learning. Emerging themes include the interaction between implicit and explicit processes, the role of the medial temporal lobe, developmental aspects of implicit learning, age-dependence, the role of sleep and consolidation. The attempts to characterize the interaction between implicit and explicit learning are promising although not well understood. The same can be said about the role of sleep and consolidation. Despite the fact that lesion studies have relatively consistently suggested that the medial temporal lobe memory system is not necessary for implicit learning, a number of functional magnetic resonance studies have reported medial temporal lobe activation in implicit learning. This issue merits further research. Finally, the clinical relevance of implicit learning remains to be determined.

  7. A Construction Grammar for the Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Holme, Randal

    2010-01-01

    Construction grammars (Lakoff, Women, fire and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the Mind, University of Chicago Press, 1987; Langacker, Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical pre-requisites, Stanford University Press, 1987; Croft, Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective, Oxford University…

  8. Didactique des langues etrangeres: De quoi parle-t-on quand on parle de grammaire? (Didactic of Foreign Languages: What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Grammar?).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Berche, Merce Pujol

    1998-01-01

    A discussion of the term "grammar" in the context of second-language teaching and learning looks at various approaches to/definitions of grammar, including linguistic, psychological, sociological, and pedagogical grammars. Pedagogical grammars are viewed as learning tools for the second-language classroom, and their properties and components are…

  9. Effects of Phylogenetic Tree Style on Student Comprehension

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Dees, Jonathan Andrew

    Phylogenetic trees are powerful tools of evolutionary biology that have become prominent across the life sciences. Consequently, learning to interpret and reason from phylogenetic trees is now an essential component of biology education. However, students often struggle to understand these diagrams, even after explicit instruction. One factor that has been observed to affect student understanding of phylogenetic trees is style (i.e., diagonal or bracket). The goal of this dissertation research was to systematically explore effects of style on student interpretations and construction of phylogenetic trees in the context of an introductory biology course. Before instruction, students were significantly more accurate with bracket phylogenetic trees for a variety of interpretation and construction tasks. Explicit instruction that balanced the use of diagonal and bracket phylogenetic trees mitigated some, but not all, style effects. After instruction, students were significantly more accurate for interpretation tasks involving taxa relatedness and construction exercises when using the bracket style. Based on this dissertation research and prior studies on style effects, I advocate for introductory biology instructors to use only the bracket style. Future research should examine causes of style effects and variables other than style to inform the development of research-based instruction that best supports student understanding of phylogenetic trees.

  10. Explicit and implicit motor learning in children with unilateral cerebral palsy.

    PubMed

    van der Kamp, John; Steenbergen, Bert; Masters, Rich S W

    2017-07-30

    The current study aimed to investigate the capacity for explicit and implicit learning in children with unilateral cerebral palsy. Children with left and right unilateral cerebral palsy and typically developing children shuffled disks toward a target. A prism-adaptation design was implemented, consisting of pre-exposure, prism exposure, and post-exposure phases. Half of the participants were instructed about the function of the prism glasses, while the other half were not. For each trial, the distance between the target and the shuffled disk was determined. Explicit learning was indicated by the rate of adaptation during the prism exposure phase, whereas implicit learning was indicated by the magnitude of the negative after-effect at the start of the post-exposure phase. Results No significant effects were revealed between typically developing participants and participants with unilateral cerebral palsy. Comparison of participants with left and right unilateral cerebral palsy demonstrated that participants with right unilateral cerebral palsy had a significantly lower rate of adaptation than participants with left unilateral cerebral palsy, but only when no instructions were provided. The magnitude of the negative after-effects did not differ significantly between participants with right and left unilateral cerebral palsy. The capacity for explicit motor learning is reduced among individuals with right unilateral cerebral palsy when accumulation of declarative knowledge is unguided (i.e., discovery learning). In contrast, the capacity for implicit learning appears to remain intact among individuals with left as well as right unilateral cerebral palsy. Implications for rehabilitation Implicit motor learning interventions are recommended for individuals with cerebral palsy, particularly for individuals with right unilateral cerebral palsy Explicit motor learning interventions for individual with cerebral palsy - if used - best consist of singular verbal instruction.

  11. Grammar-Supported 3d Indoor Reconstruction from Point Clouds for As-Built Bim

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Becker, S.; Peter, M.; Fritsch, D.

    2015-03-01

    The paper presents a grammar-based approach for the robust automatic reconstruction of 3D interiors from raw point clouds. The core of the approach is a 3D indoor grammar which is an extension of our previously published grammar concept for the modeling of 2D floor plans. The grammar allows for the modeling of buildings whose horizontal, continuous floors are traversed by hallways providing access to the rooms as it is the case for most office buildings or public buildings like schools, hospitals or hotels. The grammar is designed in such way that it can be embedded in an iterative automatic learning process providing a seamless transition from LOD3 to LOD4 building models. Starting from an initial low-level grammar, automatically derived from the window representations of an available LOD3 building model, hypotheses about indoor geometries can be generated. The hypothesized indoor geometries are checked against observation data - here 3D point clouds - collected in the interior of the building. The verified and accepted geometries form the basis for an automatic update of the initial grammar. By this, the knowledge content of the initial grammar is enriched, leading to a grammar with increased quality. This higher-level grammar can then be applied to predict realistic geometries to building parts where only sparse observation data are available. Thus, our approach allows for the robust generation of complete 3D indoor models whose quality can be improved continuously as soon as new observation data are fed into the grammar-based reconstruction process. The feasibility of our approach is demonstrated based on a real-world example.

  12. Characterization of mathematics instructional practises for prospective elementary teachers with varying levels of self-efficacy in classroom management and mathematics teaching

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lee, Carrie W.; Walkowiak, Temple A.; Nietfeld, John L.

    2017-03-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between prospective teachers' (PTs) instructional practises and their efficacy beliefs in classroom management and mathematics teaching. A sequential, explanatory mixed-methods design was employed. Results from efficacy surveys, implemented with 54 PTs were linked to a sample of teachers' instructional practises during the qualitative phase. In this phase, video-recorded lessons were analysed based on tasks, representations, discourse, and classroom management. Findings indicate that PTs with higher levels of mathematics teaching efficacy taught lessons characterised by tasks of higher cognitive demand, extended student explanations, student-to-student discourse, and explicit connections between representations. Classroom management efficacy seems to bear influence on the utilised grouping structures. These findings support explicit attention to PTs' mathematics teaching and classroom management efficacy throughout teacher preparation and a need for formative feedback to inform development of beliefs about teaching practises.

  13. Applying A Formal Language of Command and Control For Interoperability Between Systems

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2008-05-21

    Initially, it must be determined which type of grammar is to be used. The Chomsky hierarchy specifies that grammars can be Type 0 (unrestricted...future research. 2. Development of Formal Grammars In his book “Syntactic Structures” [5], published in 1957, Noam Chomsky answered the question...be finite because recursion is allowed. 2.2 Types of Grammars Chomsky defines four types of grammar . They are ordered within what is

  14. Semantic processes leading to true and false memory formation in schizophrenia.

    PubMed

    Paz-Alonso, Pedro M; Ghetti, Simona; Ramsay, Ian; Solomon, Marjorie; Yoon, Jong; Carter, Cameron S; Ragland, J Daniel

    2013-07-01

    Encoding semantic relationships between items on word lists (semantic processing) enhances true memories, but also increases memory distortions. Episodic memory impairments in schizophrenia (SZ) are strongly driven by failures to process semantic relations, but the exact nature of these relational semantic processing deficits is not well understood. Here, we used a false memory paradigm to investigate the impact of implicit and explicit semantic processing manipulations on episodic memory in SZ. Thirty SZ and 30 demographically matched healthy controls (HC) studied Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists of semantically associated words. Half of the lists had strong implicit semantic associations and the remainder had low strength associations. Similarly, half of the lists were presented under "standard" instructions and the other half under explicit "relational processing" instructions. After study, participants performed recall and old/new recognition tests composed of targets, critical lures, and unrelated lures. HC exhibited higher true memories and better discriminability between true and false memory compared to SZ. High, versus low, associative strength increased false memory rates in both groups. However, explicit "relational processing" instructions positively improved true memory rates only in HC. Finally, true and false memory rates were associated with severity of disorganized and negative symptoms in SZ. These results suggest that reduced processing of semantic relationships during encoding in SZ may stem from an inability to implement explicit relational processing strategies rather than a fundamental deficit in the implicit activation and retrieval of word meanings from patients' semantic lexicon. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  15. Development of the Grammar and Phonology Screening (GAPS) test to assess key markers of specific language and literacy difficulties in young children.

    PubMed

    Gardner, Hilary; Froud, Karen; McClelland, Alastair; van der Lely, Heather K J

    2006-01-01

    Despite a large body of evidence regarding reliable indicators of language deficits in young children, there has not been a standardized, quick screen for language impairment. The Grammar and Phonology Screening (GAPS) test was therefore designed as a short, reliable assessment of young children's language abilities. GAPS was designed to provide a quick screening test to assess whether pre- and early school entry children have the necessary grammar and pre-reading phonological skills needed for education and social development. This paper reports the theoretical background to the test, the pilot study and reliability, and the standardization. This 10-min test comprises 11 test sentences and eight test nonsense words for direct imitation and is designed to highlight significant markers of language impairment and reading difficulties. To standardize the GAPS, 668 children aged 3.4-6.6 were tested across the UK, taking into account population distribution and socio-economic status. The test was carried out by a range of health and education professionals as well as by students and carers using only simple, written instructions. GAPS is effective in detecting a range of children in need of further in-depth assessment or monitoring for language difficulties. The results concur with those from much larger epidemiological studies using lengthy testing procedures. The GAPS test (1) provides a successful screening tool; (2) is designed to be administered by professionals and non-professionals alike; and (3) facilitates identification of language impairment or at-risk factors of reading impairment in the early educational years. Thus, the test affords a first step in a process of assessment and targeted intervention to enable children to reach their potential.

  16. Implicit and explicit social mentalizing: dual processes driven by a shared neural network

    PubMed Central

    Van Overwalle, Frank; Vandekerckhove, Marie

    2013-01-01

    Recent social neuroscientific evidence indicates that implicit and explicit inferences on the mind of another person (i.e., intentions, attributions or traits), are subserved by a shared mentalizing network. Under both implicit and explicit instructions, ERP studies reveal that early inferences occur at about the same time, and fMRI studies demonstrate an overlap in core mentalizing areas, including the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These results suggest a rapid shared implicit intuition followed by a slower explicit verification processes (as revealed by additional brain activation during explicit vs. implicit inferences). These data provide support for a default-adjustment dual-process framework of social mentalizing. PMID:24062663

  17. Generic Detection of Register Realignment

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ďurfina, Lukáš; Kolář, Dušan

    2011-09-01

    The register realignment is a method of binary obfuscation and it is used by malware writers. The paper introduces the method how register realignment can be recognized by analysis based on the scattered context grammars. Such an analysis includes exploration of bytes affected by realignment, finding new valid values for them, building the scattered context grammar and parse an obfuscated code by this grammar. The created grammar has LL property--an ability for parsing by this type of grammar.

  18. Generic Detection of Register Realignment

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Durfina, Lukáš; Kolář, Dušan

    2011-09-01

    The register realignment is a method of binary obfuscation and it is used by malware writers. The paper introduces the method how register realignment can be recognized by analysis based on the scattered context grammars. Such an analysis includes exploration of bytes affected by realignment, finding new valid values for them, building the scattered context grammar and parse an obfuscated code by this grammar. The created grammar has LL property—an ability for parsing by this type of grammar.

  19. Parse Completion: A Study of an Inductive Domain

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1987-07-01

    for Right Linear and Chomsky Normal Form grammars in detail. These two grammar classes were chosen as they can capture the classes of Regular and...Linear and Chomsky Normal Form grammars the allowed RHS formats could be divided into those which introduced new non-terminals and those which reused... Chomsky Normal Form grammars can both be shown to define a partial order over the set of grammars consistent with the examples. (Note that this is a

  20. Performance of children with developmental dyslexia on high and low topological entropy artificial grammar learning task.

    PubMed

    Katan, Pesia; Kahta, Shani; Sasson, Ayelet; Schiff, Rachel

    2017-07-01

    Graph complexity as measured by topological entropy has been previously shown to affect performance on artificial grammar learning tasks among typically developing children. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of graph complexity on implicit sequential learning among children with developmental dyslexia. Our goal was to determine whether children's performance depends on the complexity level of the grammar system learned. We conducted two artificial grammar learning experiments that compared performance of children with developmental dyslexia with that of age- and reading level-matched controls. Experiment 1 was a high topological entropy artificial grammar learning task that aimed to establish implicit learning phenomena in children with developmental dyslexia using previously published experimental conditions. Experiment 2 is a lower topological entropy variant of that task. Results indicated that given a high topological entropy grammar system, children with developmental dyslexia who were similar to the reading age-matched control group had substantial difficulty in performing the task as compared to typically developing children, who exhibited intact implicit learning of the grammar. On the other hand, when tested on a lower topological entropy grammar system, all groups performed above chance level, indicating that children with developmental dyslexia were able to identify rules from a given grammar system. The results reinforced the significance of graph complexity when experimenting with artificial grammar learning tasks, particularly with dyslexic participants.

  1. A Look into Students' Retention of Acquired Nature of Science Understandings

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Khishfe, Rola

    2015-07-01

    Having the learning and retention of science content and skills as a goal of scientific literacy, it is significant to study the issue of retention as it relates to teaching and learning about nature of science (NOS). Then, the purpose of this study was to investigate the development of NOS understandings of students, and the retention of these understandings four months after being acquired through explicit reflective instruction in relation to two contexts. Participants were 24 tenth-grade students at a private high school in a city in the Middle East. Explicit NOS instruction was addressed within a six-week unit about genetic engineering. Three NOS aspects were integrated and dispersed across the unit. A questionnaire, together with semi-structured interviews, was administered as pre-, post-, and delayed post-test to assess the retention of participants' NOS understandings. The questionnaire had two open-ended scenarios addressing controversial socioscientific issues about genetically modified food and water fluoridation. Results showed that most students improved their naïve understandings of NOS in relation to the two contexts following the six-week unit with the explicit NOS instruction. However, these newly acquired NOS understandings were not retained by all students four months after instruction. Many of the students reverted back to their earlier naïve understandings. Conclusions about the factors facilitating the process of retention as the orientation to meaningful learning and the prolonged exposure to the domain were discussed in relation to practical implications in the classroom.

  2. Instruction and Pragmatic Change during Study Abroad Email Communication

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alcón-Soler, Eva

    2015-01-01

    The study deals with the effect of instruction and study abroad (SA) on pragmatic knowledge. More specifically, the focus is on gains in explicit knowledge of request mitigators, and whether learners draw on this knowledge when they perform email requests. Email requests produced by 60 Spanish students staying abroad (30 treatment/30 control…

  3. The Influence of Mathematics Vocabulary Instruction Embedded within Addition Tutoring for First-Grade Students with Mathematics Difficulty

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Powell, Sarah R.; Driver, Melissa K.

    2015-01-01

    Researchers and practitioners indicate students require explicit instruction on mathematics vocabulary terms, yet no study has examined the effects of an embedded vocabulary component within mathematics tutoring for early elementary students. First-grade students with mathematics difficulty (MD; n = 98) were randomly assigned to addition tutoring…

  4. Writing Better: Effective Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning Difficulties

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Graham, Steve; Harris, Karen

    2005-01-01

    Whether they have learning disabilities or just need extra help, struggling writers can improve their skills dramatically if they get the detailed, explicit instruction they need. This practical guidebook shows elementary school teachers how to make this systematic instruction part of their classroom. Educators will find a wide range of specific…

  5. The Impact of Instruction on Second-Language Implicit Knowledge: Evidence against Encapsulation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Toth, Paul D.; Guijarro-Fuentes, Pedro

    2013-01-01

    This paper compares explicit instruction in second-language Spanish with a control treatment on a written picture description task and a timed auditory grammaticality judgment task. Participants came from two intact, third-year US high school classes, with one experiencing a week of communicative lessons on the Spanish clitic "se"…

  6. Contextualizing Nature of Science Instruction in Socioscientific Issues

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eastwood, Jennifer Lynne; Sadler, Troy D.; Zeidler, Dana L.; Lewis, Anna; Amiri, Leila; Applebaum, Scott

    2012-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two learning contexts for explicit-reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction, socioscientific issues (SSI) driven and content driven, on student NOS conceptions. Four classes of 11th and 12th grade anatomy and physiology students participated. Two classes experienced a curricular…

  7. A Framework for Re-Envisioning Mathematics Instruction for English Language Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Council of the Great City Schools, 2016

    2016-01-01

    The overarching purpose of this document is to define a new vision for mathematics instruction that explicitly attends to the needs of English Language Learners (ELLs), addressing the interdependence of language and mathematics. The sections in this report are devoted to (1) making clear that the grade-level college- and career-readiness…

  8. Effects of Explicit Subtraction Instruction on Fifth Grade Students with Learning Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ferreira, Danielle

    2009-01-01

    This study involved an investigation of the effects of strategy instruction integrated with the concrete-representational-abstract teaching sequence on students with learning disabilities. A multiple probe design across subjects with one replication was used in this study. Two sets of data were analyzed to determine effectiveness of the…

  9. Comprehension Monitoring: Detection and Identification of Text Inconsistencies by LD and Normal Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chan, Lorna K. S.; And Others

    1987-01-01

    Elementary level learning disabled (N=32) and regular class children matched on reading age were given either general or specific instruction on how to use a cross-referencing technique to evaluate internal consistency of text. Subjects who received the explicit instruction demonstrated high performance in both comprehension monitoring and reading…

  10. The Effect of Scaffolded Causal Identification in the Transfer of Experimental Design Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Siler, Stephanie A.; Klahr, David; Willows, Kevin; Magaro, Cressida

    2011-01-01

    A central goal of instruction is to enable learners to transfer acquired knowledge to appropriate future situations. One factor that likely promotes far transfer is conceptual coherence (cf. Murphy & Medin, 1985). For elementary and middle-school school children in middle-high-SES schools, "explicit" instruction on the Control of…

  11. Supporting Secondary Readers: When Teachers Provide the "What," Not the "How"

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ness, Molly K.

    2008-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the instructional strategies that middle and high school teachers used to support struggling readers. Data from 2,400 minutes of direct classroom observation and interviews of secondary content-area teachers revealed that explicit reading comprehension instruction was not a significant way in…

  12. Memory Strategy Instruction, Contextual Learning and ESP Vocabulary Recall

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Atay, Derin; Ozbulgan, Cengiz

    2007-01-01

    In the last decades there has been an increasing interest in vocabulary learning strategies given that they are found to facilitate second/foreign language vocabulary learning and recall. As many learners do not develop sufficient mastery of the strategy repertoire, explicit instruction on vocabulary learning strategies may help them to become…

  13. Making Learning Last: Teachers' Long-Term Retention of Improved Nature of Science Conceptions and Instructional Rationales

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mulvey, Bridget K.; Bell, Randy L.

    2017-01-01

    Despite successful attempts to improve learners' nature of science (NOS) conceptions through explicit, reflective approaches, retention of improved conceptions is rarely addressed in research. The issue of context for NOS instruction has implications for this retention. Whether to contextualise has been the question occupying science educators'…

  14. Parents Using Explicit Reading Instruction with Their Children At-Risk for Reading Difficulties

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McConnell, Bethany M.; Kubina, Rick

    2016-01-01

    Kindergarten students at-risk for reading difficulties were selected for participation in a parent implemented reading program. Each parent provided instruction to his or her child using the reading program "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" ("TYCTR"; Engelmann, Haddox, & Bruner, 1983). Parents were expected to…

  15. Critical Comments on the General Model of Instructional Communication

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Walton, Justin D.

    2014-01-01

    This essay presents a critical commentary on McCroskey et al.'s (2004) general model of instructional communication. In particular, five points are examined which make explicit and problematize the meta-theoretical assumptions of the model. Comments call attention to the limitations of the model and argue for a broader approach to…

  16. Promoting a Pedagogy for Listening Instruction: Primary Grade Teachers Perceptions of Teaching Listening through Interactive Read Alouds

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fogelsong, Donna Fortune

    2016-01-01

    This study was designed to investigate teachers' perceptions about instructing listening in second-grade classrooms. Children's literature that included specific listening content was used to explore how the teachers' perceptions influenced planning read alouds for explicitly teaching listening skills. Investigations included: (1) What were…

  17. Are Instructional Explanations More Effective in the Context of an Impasse?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sanchez, Emilio; Garcia-Rodicio, Hector; Acuna, Santiago R.

    2009-01-01

    Effective instructional explanations help the students to construct coherent mental representations. To do so, one condition is that they must be tailored to students' needs. It is hypothesized that explanations are more helpful if they also explicitly aid the students to detect problems in their mental representations, as this provokes an impasse…

  18. Learning for Keeps: Teaching the Strategies Essential for Creating Independent Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Koenig, Rhoda

    2010-01-01

    How can teachers ensure instruction is aligned with 21st century demands for self-directed, collaborative problem solvers? Practice exercises are not the answer. Instead, here's a book that explains why the key is to use explicit instruction that includes proficient models, specific feedback, and supportive coaching. Rhoda Koenig gives you insight…

  19. Investigating the Effect of Reduced Forms Instruction on EFL Learners' Listening and Speaking Abilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Khaghaninezhad, Mohammad Saber; Jafarzadeh, Ghasem

    2014-01-01

    Listening comprehension is usually considered as one of the most difficult language skills to EFL learners due to the unavoidable presence of "reduced forms" in authentic speech. This study was an attempt to investigate the effect of explicit "reduced forms" instruction on Iranian EFL learners' overall listening comprehension…

  20. Higher Order Thinking Skills: Challenging All Students to Achieve

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Williams, R. Bruce

    2007-01-01

    Explicit instruction in thinking skills must be a priority goal of all teachers. In this book, the author presents a framework of the five Rs: Relevancy, Richness, Relatedness, Rigor, and Recursiveness. The framework serves to illuminate instruction in critical and creative thinking skills for K-12 teachers across content areas. Each chapter…

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