The aim of this study was to examine the effect of the integration of physical education and language on oral and written speech of preschool children. Sixty seven preschool children (34 girls and 33 boys), ages 4 to 6, were randomly divided into two groups. Group A participated at a 5- week movement and language program in the gym while Group B…

This study examined the use of an antecedent-based intervention to reduce the vocal stereotypy of a student diagnosed with Autism within the general education classroom. The student displayed frequent nonfunctional speech and disruptive vocal sounds. An antecedent-based intervention, involving the use of qualitatively different cards--to cue the…

This study examined the effects of a computer-based early reading program (Headsprout Early Reading) on the oral language and early reading skills of at-risk preschool children. In a pretest-posttest control group design, 62 children were randomly assigned to receive supplemental instruction with Headsprout Early Reading (experimental group) or…

Previous studies on L2 Japanese sojourners often reported that learners overuse the plain style or haphazardly mix the plain and polite styles upon return. These styles, which are often associated with formal or informal contexts, also index complex social and situational meanings, and native speakers are reported to shift their styles to create…

In this paper, we will describe the theoretical underpinning of many bilingual education programs for deaf children: Cummins' Linguistic Interdependence theory. Then, we will review some of the studies that have been conducted on the relation between reading and signing skills, and discuss how difficult it is to interpret their findings within…

Increasing numbers of students are opting for study abroad programs of 2 months or less while research on study abroad generally focuses on semester- or year-long programs. This study quantitatively examines changes in students' spoken Spanish after 6 weeks in Argentina using native speaker ratings of student speech. The researcher then uses…

Higher education institutions across Europe are currently involved in a major process of reforming and restructuring as part of the Bologna process which stresses the role of competences and outcomes in curriculum design. This paper reports on the findings of a research project whose purpose was to assess the clarity and the appropriate…

"Highly iconic" structures in Sign Language enable a narrator to act, switch characters, describe objects, or report actions in four-dimensions. This group of linguistic structures has no real spoken-language equivalent. Topographical descriptions are also achieved in a sign-language specific manner via the use of signing-space and…

Early intervention aims to prevent poor literacy outcomes associated with social disadvantage. This study examined whether the short-term positive effect of a preschool classroom-based oral language and phonological awareness (PA) programme was maintained and transferred to literacy 2 years later. The vocabulary knowledge, grammatical skill,…

The current study sought to determine the relationship among music teachers' length of teaching experience, specialty (vocal or instrumental), and ratings of behaviors and teaching activities related to vocal health. Participants (N = 379) were experienced (n = 208) and preservice (n = 171) music teachers, further categorized by specialty, either…

This article describes how the author has successfully combined polling with more traditional instructional strategies to enhance student presentation skills in an advanced course teaching technical German. By helping students select and prepare topics, anticipate questions and engage the audience, instructors can eliminate some of the root causes…

Listeners are exquisitely sensitive to fine-grained acoustic detail within phonetic categories for sounds and words. Here we show that this sensitivity is optimal given the probabilistic nature of speech cues. We manipulated the probability distribution of one probabilistic cue, voice onset time (VOT), which differentiates word initial labial…

Language is the most important instrument for communication. It enables and facilitates both the speaker and the listener to exchange their thoughts and feelings. It is the basis for social, cultural, aesthetic, spiritual and economic development and growth of every human being. Unless the spoken language is free from errors and barriers, it can…

A call for a bridge between research and practice is nothing new, yet it seems to be an impossible task to accomplish. Despite the dedicated efforts made by numerous researchers in the past, the world is still largely separate between researchers and teachers. One piece of evidence is that research studies seem to have only a little impact on…

This dissertation tests a grammatical structure, differential object marking (DOM), which is particularly difficult for L2 learners to acquire. DOM is a phenomenon in which some direct objects are morphologically marked to distinguish them from subjects (Comrie, 1979). In Spanish, animate and specific direct objects are marked with the preposition…