That English is the lingua franca of today's science is an indisputable fact. Publication in English in international journals is a pre-requisite for a research paper to gain visibility in academia. However, English proficiency appears to be taken for granted in the scientific community, though this language can be a hurdle for a number of authors, particularly from non-native English-speaking ...

After immersion in a foreign language, speakers often have difficulty retrieving native-language words and may experience a decrease in its proficiency, this phenomenon, in the non-pathological form, is known as first language attrition. Self-perception of this low native-language proficiency and apprehension occurring when speaking is expected and, may sometimes lead these people to a state of...

Two hundred and four 5and 6-year-olds who were monolingual English-, bilingual English–Chinese-, or Chinese-speaking children beginning to learn English (2nd-language learners) were compared on phonological awareness and word decoding tasks in English and Chinese. Phonological awareness developed in response to language exposure and instruction but, once established, transferred across language...

Speaking assessment is still construed as a complicated, under-researched process from the vantage point of tasks and rater characteristics. The present study aimed at investigating if and how English Major and none English Major teachers differ in their perception of the construct of oral proficiency while assessing learners’ L2 oral proficiency.  To this end, 38 male and female non-native EFL...

The history of pedagogy and education shows that syllabus has always had a crucial role in the success of every course. Nowadays, the course designers allocate an especial room for learners’ needs which are continuously changing in an expanding world. This demands a new vision in education through cooperation with others via negotiation for syllabus. Although a great body of research has been c...

PURPOSE To develop a reliable and valid questionnaire of bilingual language status with predictable relationships between self-reported and behavioral measures. METHOD In Study 1, the internal validity of the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q) was established on the basis of self-reported data from 52 multilingual adult participants. In Study 2, criterion-based validit...

Twenty-four laryngectomies, ranging widely in speaking ability, read a standard passage for audio recording. Four experienced voice clinicians rated the acceptability of the speakers' air intake noise. Independently, overall speech proficiency ratings were obtained for 18 of the subjects. Five objective measures of the subjects' esophageal speech were obtained using a real-time intensity displa...

Franziska Lys, Northwestern University In this study, I investigate the use and integration of iPads in an advanced German conversation class. In particular, I am interested in analyzing how students learn with this new technology and how it affects the development of their oral proficiency level. Overall, my results suggest that iPads are well suited to practice listening and speaking proficie...

This study investigates the degree to which native-English speaking learners of Spanish can generate expectations for information likely to occur in upcoming portions of an unfolding linguistic signal. We examine Spanish Clitic Left Dislocation, a long-distance dependency between a topicalized object and an agreeing clitic, whose felicity depends on the discourse. Using a self-paced reading tas...

OBJECTIVES We assessed the impact of interpreter services on the cost and the utilization of health care services among patients with limited English proficiency. METHODS We measured the change in delivery and cost of care provided to patients enrolled in a health maintenance organization before and after interpreter services were implemented. RESULTS Compared with English-speaking patients...