This study investigated the manner in which 56 infant educators used language to direct the behaviour of infants (defined as children aged birth to two years), on the basis that the ways in which educators frame their commands represent an important component of young children's learning experiences. Underpinned by systemic functional linguistic…

Online planning of good teaching sequences has the potential to provide a truly personalized teaching experience with a huge impact on the motivation and learning of students. In this work we compare two main approaches to achieve such a goal, POMDPs that can find an optimal long-term path, and Multi-armed bandits that optimize policies locally…

This study, adopting a longitudinal approach, traces the dynamic word knowledge development of two essential dimensions (meaning and collocation) both receptively and productively in Chinese context. Seven freshmen students (from the same class in a university in Guangzhou) of different language levels were selected to be observed of their English…

The effective use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can have positive effects on the development of learners' English abilities. To what degree it is effective is partly determined by learners' characteristics in ICT use. However, these characteristics have not yet been sufficiently discussed in Japan. This study, then, explored…

This study examined perceptions of students of the benefits of consciousness-raising tasks (CRT) and communicative tasks (CT) when compared with actual learning outcomes in a Saudi secondary school context. Qualitative data were collected from 60 Saudi speaking learners of English, at various proficiency levels, who had engaged in a sequence of…

Inverted ("flipped") pedagogical models are rapidly increasing in prevalence within language education. These models are particularly relevant for language learning given that they promote learner agency and encourage the use of artifacts to mediate cognition. However, the specific methods used in these models are often not anticipated…

This study compared the effects of two brief prereading instructional practices--hands-on activities and prior knowledge activation--on sixth-graders' intrinsic motivation for reading a text and reading comprehension. Both hands-on activities and prior knowledge activation substantially improved reading comprehension relative to a control…

This paper seeks to address some key issues, which can influence as well as determine the nature of teaching and learning practices in an ELT classroom directly or indirectly. This paper views an EFL or ESL classroom as a dynamic and multi-dimensional platform open to different interpretations of teaching and learning. Factors like teachers'…

Teaching is challenging in part because, although school structures are to some extent modelled on industrial approaches in which the "raw materials" are assumed to be very similar, human beings are endlessly diverse. Understanding the many differences amongst students, and treating these differences as teaching resources rather than…

Objectives: Our objectives are to present conceptualizations of the comprehension of single and multiple texts that address the role of epistemic beliefs in text comprehension, review supporting evidence for such conceptualizations, and note particular trends and future challenges for this area of research. Frameworks: Conceptualizations of the…

This paper outlines an ongoing qualitative review of themes that have emerged across the various session of the "Paint Your Life" program which was developed over the last 15 years. The author discusses the potential for "Paint Your Life" to disrupt hegemonic discourse about art, artists, and community development. Based on the…

The present study is a quantitative research that attempts to scrutinize the place of students' views on integrating contextual micro-grammar revision with contextual vocabulary teaching consistent with Constructivism. Therefore, the study investigates the first and the second-year students' attitudes towards a new technique that attempts to…

Research on the pedagogical value of providing students with PowerPoint (PPT) slide handouts has produced mixed results. One reason for the inconsistent findings may be that most studies in this stream of research have neglected to examine individual differences. In the current study, we aimed to advance research on the pedagogical value of…

Previous research has repeatedly revealed evidence for morpho-orthographic priming effects in suffixed words. However, evidence for the morphological chunking of prefixed words is sparse and ambiguous. The goal of the present study was to directly contrast the processing of prefixed and suffixed pseudowords within the same experiment. We carried…

The aim of this review is to consider how current vocabulary training methods could be optimized by considering recent scientific insights in how the brain represents conceptual knowledge. We outline the findings from several methods of vocabulary training. In each case, we consider how taking an embodied cognition perspective could impact word…