Ampersand最新文献

{"title":"Unveiling the professional identity construction of in-service university English language teachers: Evidence from Bangladesh","authors":"Md Rabiul Alam ,&nbsp;Md Sahidul Islam ,&nbsp;Diana Ansarey ,&nbsp;Md Masud Rana ,&nbsp;Md Rashed Khan Milon ,&nbsp;Huzaina Abdul Halim ,&nbsp;Sultana Jahan ,&nbsp;Amina Rashid","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100178","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100178","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study aims to investigate the construction of professional identity among Bangladeshi university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and its influence on classroom performance. Employing a qualitative case study approach, data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. Interviews were conducted with two Bangladeshi university teachers who have significant experience in EFL teaching. The interview questions were designed based on the language teachers’ identity formation model, focusing on factors relevant to foundational competences. Content analysis was employed to analyze the collected data and identify emergent themes. The findings indicate that proficiency in language skills, contextual knowledge, self-awareness, disciplinary knowledge, and classroom management skills play pivotal roles in reshaping the professional identities of Bangladeshi university EFL teachers. Classroom observations revealed the strategies employed by these teachers in language use, pedagogical approaches, and classroom management to construct their professional identities. Despite aspirations to conduct classes solely in English, teachers often resorted to using the students' mother tongue for better comprehension. Based on these findings, the study suggests a focus on diverse teacher education programs in Bangladesh to produce more proficient teachers.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221503902400016X/pdfft?md5=41b49fc47172532f703101bdcdc73244&pid=1-s2.0-S221503902400016X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141277428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Erratum to “Educational bilingualism: Reflections on a longitudinal study of children's cognitive and linguistic development” [Ampersand 8 (2023) 100115]","authors":"Gloria Chamorro ,&nbsp;Vikki Janke","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2023.100153","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.amper.2023.100153","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100153"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039023000462/pdfft?md5=03ee05c87cc746c01f32a20656f68f3e&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039023000462-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139327402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The ditransitive construction and the double accusative construction as allostructions: Corpus-based analysis and pedagogical applications","authors":"Sabine De Knop ,&nbsp;Fabio Mollica","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2024.100176","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The study explores the challenges encountered by Italian-speaking students with the learning of the German ditransitive construction. While prior research has extensively covered theoretical aspects of this construction, limited attention has been paid to its practical implications for foreign language learning.</p><p>The study further elaborates on a related construction involving a similar semantics but realized with two accusative objects. Verbs which can fuse with this construction are e.g. <em>lehren</em> (‘to teach’), <em>abfragen</em> (‘to interrogate/to test’) or <em>abhören</em> (‘to test orally’). This related construction is often overlooked in language learning materials. The paper addresses this gap by combining empirical evidence from two pretests with Italian learners and a usage-based approach with corpus data, focusing on the verb <em>lehren</em>.</p><p>The findings contribute to a better understanding and a more authentic description of the ditransitive construction. In a more theoretical perspective, the paper further discusses the relationship between the ditransitive and the double accusative construction in terms of ‘allostructions’, again with a focus on instantiations with the verb <em>lehren</em>. The insights gained with the study can help foster the learning of both constructions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"13 ","pages":"Article 100176"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039024000146/pdfft?md5=f53c4ddbe8d9322de5538afb08d7df6e&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039024000146-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141482199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Differences in voice quality measures among monolingual and bilingual speakers","authors":"Georgios P. Georgiou ,&nbsp;Asimina Kaskampa","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2024.100175","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While extensive research exists on the variations in voice quality measures among different languages, the impact of bilingualism on voice characteristics has been relatively understudied in the literature. This study explores the divergences among monolingual and bilingual speakers in various voice quality measures. The participants were adult Greek monolingual and adult Albanian-Greek sequential bilingual speakers, who permanently lived in Greece. All speakers participated in a controlled sentence production task, which targeted the Greek vowels. Acoustic measures such as fundamental frequency (F0), first four formants (F1–F4), duration, jitter, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR), and intensity were elicited from the speech samples. Differences were identified in the majority of voice parameters for certain vowels, implying that the vocal characteristics of bilinguals may demonstrate distinct adaptations compared to those of monolinguals in certain instances. Jitter displayed the most pronounced differences across vowels, followed by F2, shimmer, and HNR, with F3, F4, and duration showing relatively fewer distinctions. It is established that sequential bilingual speakers may exhibit variations from monolingual speakers across multiple acoustic parameters and that voice quality parameters can also manifest as sound-specific. These findings hold practical significance for the evaluation and therapeutic interventions tailored to bilingual individuals within clinical settings.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100175"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039024000134/pdfft?md5=2ce4c6bfd50a931a4b8324c639201071&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039024000134-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140950061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Minority language happiness: The link between social inclusion, well-being, and speaking a regional language in the northern Netherlands","authors":"Jelle Brouwer,&nbsp;Raoul Buurke,&nbsp;Floor van den Berg,&nbsp;Remco Knooihuizen,&nbsp;Hanneke Loerts,&nbsp;Martijn Bartelds,&nbsp;Martijn Wieling,&nbsp;Merel Keijzer","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2024.100173","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Belonging to groups is often based on shared features between members and is associated with higher levels of (social) well-being. One especially strong marker of one's group membership is language. In linguistics, most research about group membership and well-being focuses on migrants and refugees. However, very little research has focused on the link between speaking a regional language and well-being. This is surprising, as regional languages index a strong shared in-group identity that could lead to exclusion of those who do not speak them. As a first empirical step, this paper reports on the association between regional language use (specifically, of Frisian and Low Saxon) and social well-being. We distributed a language background questionnaire to participants of the Lifelines cohort, a multigenerational cohort study comprising data from 167,729 participants living in the north of the Netherlands. In both language contexts (Frisian in Fryslân, and Low Saxon in Groningen and Drenthe), those using the regional language half of the time or more were found to have significantly more social contacts. They also experienced higher levels of social embeddedness than those who did not know or did not frequently use the regional language. The higher degree of social embeddedness for frequent regional language users was most strongly present in rural areas. Furthermore, we found that frequent users of Frisian living in Fryslân had higher levels of social embeddedness in rural areas than frequent users of Low Saxon living in Groningen or Drenthe. No effect was found for more overt measures of social well-being such as loneliness or life satisfaction. While our results confirm an association between regional language speaking and some indices of social functioning on a large scale, they cannot uncover a causal relationship between the two. We discuss how longitudinal studies and interviews in future studies may inform us further about the relation between regional language use and social well-being.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039024000110/pdfft?md5=c74f2e9c7444b3f3ea911b793e74888c&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039024000110-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140918761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mean length of utterance of Jordanian Arabic-speaking children with language impairment","authors":"Anas al Huneety ,&nbsp;Bassil Mashaqba ,&nbsp;Nisreen Al-Khawaldeh ,&nbsp;Munther Maqablah","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2024.100171","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study serves as an explanatory investigation of the validity of mean length of utterance (MLU) to distinguish children with typical development from those with language impairment. Data were taken from 15 typically developing children and 11 children with language impairment, all aged 4–9 years old. A minimum of 100 utterances were taken from each participant which were then analyzed using Brown's rules of counting MLU-w with some adaptations. The results of this study showed statistically significant differences between the two groups, in favor of the unaffected group (children with typical development): the MLU-w was 2.59 (SD = 0.76)for the group with language impairments and 5.37 (SD =1.67)for the TD group. The results of this study can serve as a good index to reflect language development and point to any delayed production of language.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100171"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039024000092/pdfft?md5=c3ef04ea624f578be825671f36f0a692&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039024000092-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140605482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Every teacher should be a language teacher for multilingual learners","authors":"Claudia Piller","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100170","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100170","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The purpose of this pilot study was to understand which variables influence the triad of Beliefs, Knowledge, and Teaching Methods about linguistically inclusive teaching of in-service content teachers teaching multilingual learners in German Secondary schools. The non-probability sampling method used a questionnaire in four parts with mainly Likert-scale and multiple-choice questions and generated a small sample of 26 participants through an internet-mediated survey. Using IBM® SPSS Spearman’s rho correlational analysis, six variables were identified, and the results showed that the majority of content participants believed that they had a role in language teaching. The importance of changing content teachers' beliefs in their role in developing the academic language of their multilingual learners was confirmed as well as the importance of improving their knowledge in this field by continuous training. 77% of teachers had not had training in the last three years, and 76% felt under-prepared, while more than half of participants had expressed their need for specialised training in teaching multilingual learners. As a next step, a larger-scale quantitative study is proposed to gain representative data, and to develop an in-service teacher training programme. Enabling all teachers to be language teachers would start to level up the educational, and societal opportunities of multilingual learners in German secondary schools.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100170"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039024000080/pdfft?md5=a1e75087e96e33f1b0fd7dc54b308511&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039024000080-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140283067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Contextual word disambiguates of Ge'ez language with homophonic using machine learning","authors":"Mequanent Degu Belete ,&nbsp;Ayodeji Olalekan Salau ,&nbsp;Girma Kassa Alitasb ,&nbsp;Tigist Bezabh","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2024.100169","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>According to natural language processing experts, there are numerous ambiguous words in languages. Without automated word meaning disambiguation for any language, the development of natural language processing technologies such as information extraction, information retrieval, machine translation, and others are still challenging task. Therfore, this paper presents the development of a word sense disambiguation model for duplicate alphabet words for the Ge'ez language using corpus-based methods. Because there is no wordNet or public dataset for the Ge'ez language, 1010 samples of ambiguous words were gathered. Afterwards, the words were preprocessed and the text was vectorized using bag of words, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency, and word embeddings such as word2vec and fastText. The vectorized texts are then analysed using the supervised machine learning algorithms such Naive Bayes, decision trees, random forests, K-nearest neighbor, linear support vector machine, and logistic regression. Bag of words paired with random forests outperformed all other combinations, with an accuracy of 99.52%. However, when Deep learning algorithms such as Deep neural network and Long Short-Term memory were used for the same dataset, a 100% accuracy was achieved.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100169"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039024000079/pdfft?md5=0934037108a95b4f2d122f8cf99666cb&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039024000079-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140095844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“Becoming a trilingual learner may be harder than I thought!”: Difficulties encountered by Vietnamese French-major students when studying English as a foreign language","authors":"Thanh Thao Le ,&nbsp;Trut Thuy Pham ,&nbsp;Anh Thi Nguyen ,&nbsp;Hoang Yen Phuong ,&nbsp;Thi Anh Thu Huynh ,&nbsp;Huong Tra Nguyen","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2024.100168","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study delves into the intricate dynamics of trilingual education, focusing primarily on Vietnamese students majoring in French and simultaneously learning English as a foreign language. Themes emerging from the semi-structured interviews encompass dual linguistic socialization, constructing knowledge through French while learning English, perceived insufficiencies in real-world English exposure, language interference, and the profound role Vietnamese plays in third language acquisition. Additionally, motivational aspects, perceived hierarchies of languages, cultural isolation, cognitive space struggles, institutional prioritizations, and the interplay of cultural identities come to the fore. Utilizing the frameworks of Sociocultural Theory, Constructivist Theory, and Input Hypothesis, the research contextualizes these themes, uncovering the challenges and enrichments of this trilingual journey. The study's implications suggest the necessity for tailored pedagogical strategies and support systems for trilingual learners. This work contributes significantly to the growing discourse on multilingual education, providing educators, policymakers, and learners with valuable perspectives.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100168"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039024000067/pdfft?md5=d4f319abf125977c9ef555f923150d6f&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039024000067-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140061844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The vocabulary of Yiddish-Hebrew speaking children – A CDI study","authors":"Odelya Ohana ,&nbsp;Mitchell Schertz ,&nbsp;Sharon Armon-Lotem","doi":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100167","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.amper.2024.100167","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Yiddish-Hebrew speakers residing in Israel are primarily Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox Jews, living in relatively closed communities, characterized by their large number of children, low parental formal education, and low family income. Religious literacy and schooling are highly respected. We tested the impact of these demographic factors on children's vocabulary size and language dominance. Data was collected for 34 bilingual children aged 2–4, in Yiddish, the Minority Language (MiL-Yiddish), and in Hebrew, the Majority Language (MaL-Hebrew). Demographic and language use information was gathered using a multicultural questionnaire, completed by the mothers. Significantly larger vocabulary sizes were observed across the group for Yiddish, and significant correlations were found between vocabulary measures and exposure variables. Vocabulary size in the MiL-Yiddish increased with family size. This unbalanced bilingualism may be explained by the strong Yiddish-based identity of this population and the support of MiL-Yiddish by these closed communities and particularly by their schools. The positive effect of family size on Yiddish may stem from the number of children attending these Yiddish-speaking schools. The unexpected role of family size and the dominance of MiL-Yiddish among these bilinguals undermines the definition of Yiddish as the MiL, calling for a different paradigm of in-group and out-group languages.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":35076,"journal":{"name":"Ampersand","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 100167"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039024000055/pdfft?md5=3d4e4ebe1935df96e7dd11d617c40442&pid=1-s2.0-S2215039024000055-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139820260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}