Based on the interactive theory of reading, this study mainly explored the etlects ot topic familiarity and second language proficiency on IVA （Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition） of second language through reading. ...Based on the interactive theory of reading, this study mainly explored the etlects ot topic familiarity and second language proficiency on IVA （Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition） of second language through reading. By using two different measures （translation production and selection）, this study found： （1） Vocabulary can be acquired incidentally in reading passages; （2） There are no significant interactive effects of topic familiarity and second language proficiency on vocabulary acquisition, but the two independent variables of topic familiarity and second language proficiency exerted their positively significant effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition, and （3） As for the two vocabulary measures, learners can acquire more words in translation selection than in translation production.展开更多
In this work,an approach is proposed to acquire synonymous attribute phrases of named entities(NEs) from an online encyclopedia.Synonymous attribute phrases are the phrases that express the same attribute with differe...In this work,an approach is proposed to acquire synonymous attribute phrases of named entities(NEs) from an online encyclopedia.Synonymous attribute phrases are the phrases that express the same attribute with different surface forms for a class of NEs.Specifically,the proposed approach is composed of three stages.Firstly,the entries related to a given NE class are automatically selected from an online encyclopedia.Secondly,attribute phrases are extracted based on the statistics of phrase frequency.Thirdly,synonymous attributes are identified in a pairwise manner through a classification framework combining multiple features.The proposed approach is applied on Baidu Baike,a Chinese online encyclopedia,for four different NE classes.Experimental results show that the approach obtains an average precision of 74%and an average F-value of 65%for the four NE classes.In particular,thousands of synonymous attribute phrase pairs are acquired for each class,which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach.展开更多
Writing task is an integral part of education in ESL （English as a Second Language） at the foundation level. It has been observed that foundation level 3 students of Arab Open University have an insufficient knowled...Writing task is an integral part of education in ESL （English as a Second Language） at the foundation level. It has been observed that foundation level 3 students of Arab Open University have an insufficient knowledge of vocabulary which is reflected on their writing, as their usage of vocabulary is confined to a number of limited common words. This research explores the effect of collaborative writing on students＇ vocabulary acquisition. All the writing tasks were related to educational topics in order to provide students with the lexical items related to the same subject. This study took place in one of the foundation level 3 classes at Arab Open University, Oman branch. Fourteen anonymous Arab students for whom English is considered as the second language participated in this study. All students are in the intermediate level of English language proficiency. For each writing task, five collocations were selected to be taught in the class over a period of five weeks. The achieved outcomes revealed contrary results to the previous studies that had shown the effective impact of collaborative writing. This study has discussed the contrary impact of collaborative writing on improving the learners＇ vocabulary acquisition in addition to the challenges students faced during collaborative writing task. Finally, this research provides recommendations for the effective collaborative writing in the foundation students＇ language proficiency.展开更多
Words are the basic material of language. Vocabulary is one of the important standards for measuring English levels. Mastering a certain amount of vocabulary is the key to learning English well. However, the obstructi...Words are the basic material of language. Vocabulary is one of the important standards for measuring English levels. Mastering a certain amount of vocabulary is the key to learning English well. However, the obstructions of learning vocabulary still exist. According to students＇ psychological features, the author discusses fresh and flexible ways of English vocabulary teaching. It makes vocabulary teaching vivid and easy to understand and memorize. This paper discusses some methods that how the teachers learn to teach words and how the students learn to grasp words, which based on the importance and the current situation of vocabulary teaching in middle school.展开更多
With the purpose of describing levels of English language proficiency expected at each stage in our school＇s Diploma and BA programs, we attempted to compare the level of courses with national standards as embodied i...With the purpose of describing levels of English language proficiency expected at each stage in our school＇s Diploma and BA programs, we attempted to compare the level of courses with national standards as embodied in the national TEM4 and TEM8, and with international standards as embodied in international examinations such as Cambridge ESOL, and other descriptions such as the Common European Framework via one quantifiable parameter： vocabulary range. This is justified as vocabulary range offers an approximate but useful guide to the level of a course or a testing system. We hypothesize that the language competence at different levels of our program matches various standard proficiency examinations. Paul Nation＇s Range software was used both in its standard form using his three BASEWRD files and in an adapted form adding the authors＇ own BASEWRD files extrapolated from various levels of our textbook series. This enabled us to compare the vocabulary range of our courses with that of both national and international examinations where word lists are available or recoverable. Research results supported the hypotheses suggested.展开更多
This exploratory study aims at probing into the quantitative and qualitative lexical development of freshmen and sophomores in University of Science and Technology of China, one of the top universities in China. An in...This exploratory study aims at probing into the quantitative and qualitative lexical development of freshmen and sophomores in University of Science and Technology of China, one of the top universities in China. An investigation on lexical size and depth was administered to 76 freshmen who just registered in the university, and 104 sophomores who had finished the college English course. The vocabulary size test was developed on the basis of Paul Nation's Vocabulary Levels Test, whereas vocabulary depth test was based on the lexical competency framework (Nation 1999), measuring the three types of word knowledge: spelling, meaning, and word-class knowledge of six target words. The results suggest that (1) the freshmen had a start-up vocabulary size of about 3800 words and sophomores knew about 5000 words; (2) both groups of subjects had little trouble with spelling, but their grammatical knowledge and meaning knowledge were limited; (3) meaning reception was much better than meaning production, and the reception-production gap widened in the given learning session; (4) correlations between vocabulary size and word knowledge types were relatively significant and changed with subjects' L2 proficiency, and vocabulary size test was not a good indicator of depth of word knowledge.展开更多
This study aims to discover the features of lexical cohesion in Chinese college EFL Writing:whether a particular type of lexical cohesion dominates student writing,how much lexical cohesion is affected by language pro...This study aims to discover the features of lexical cohesion in Chinese college EFL Writing:whether a particular type of lexical cohesion dominates student writing,how much lexical cohesion is affected by language proficiency and text type.Results indicated a sub-category of lexical cohesive device,exact repetition,had overwhelming dominance in Chinese college EFL writing.Writers' use of lexical cohesive devices was not affected by language proficiency,but partly influenced by writing in different text types.There was no correlation between reiteration ties and text type,but students used significantly more collocation ties in narration than argumentation.展开更多
文摘Based on the interactive theory of reading, this study mainly explored the etlects ot topic familiarity and second language proficiency on IVA （Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition） of second language through reading. By using two different measures （translation production and selection）, this study found： （1） Vocabulary can be acquired incidentally in reading passages; （2） There are no significant interactive effects of topic familiarity and second language proficiency on vocabulary acquisition, but the two independent variables of topic familiarity and second language proficiency exerted their positively significant effect on incidental vocabulary acquisition, and （3） As for the two vocabulary measures, learners can acquire more words in translation selection than in translation production.
基金Supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Programme of China(No.2008AA01Z144)the National NaturalScience Foundation of China(No.61073126,61073129)
文摘In this work,an approach is proposed to acquire synonymous attribute phrases of named entities(NEs) from an online encyclopedia.Synonymous attribute phrases are the phrases that express the same attribute with different surface forms for a class of NEs.Specifically,the proposed approach is composed of three stages.Firstly,the entries related to a given NE class are automatically selected from an online encyclopedia.Secondly,attribute phrases are extracted based on the statistics of phrase frequency.Thirdly,synonymous attributes are identified in a pairwise manner through a classification framework combining multiple features.The proposed approach is applied on Baidu Baike,a Chinese online encyclopedia,for four different NE classes.Experimental results show that the approach obtains an average precision of 74%and an average F-value of 65%for the four NE classes.In particular,thousands of synonymous attribute phrase pairs are acquired for each class,which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
文摘Writing task is an integral part of education in ESL （English as a Second Language） at the foundation level. It has been observed that foundation level 3 students of Arab Open University have an insufficient knowledge of vocabulary which is reflected on their writing, as their usage of vocabulary is confined to a number of limited common words. This research explores the effect of collaborative writing on students＇ vocabulary acquisition. All the writing tasks were related to educational topics in order to provide students with the lexical items related to the same subject. This study took place in one of the foundation level 3 classes at Arab Open University, Oman branch. Fourteen anonymous Arab students for whom English is considered as the second language participated in this study. All students are in the intermediate level of English language proficiency. For each writing task, five collocations were selected to be taught in the class over a period of five weeks. The achieved outcomes revealed contrary results to the previous studies that had shown the effective impact of collaborative writing. This study has discussed the contrary impact of collaborative writing on improving the learners＇ vocabulary acquisition in addition to the challenges students faced during collaborative writing task. Finally, this research provides recommendations for the effective collaborative writing in the foundation students＇ language proficiency.
文摘Words are the basic material of language. Vocabulary is one of the important standards for measuring English levels. Mastering a certain amount of vocabulary is the key to learning English well. However, the obstructions of learning vocabulary still exist. According to students＇ psychological features, the author discusses fresh and flexible ways of English vocabulary teaching. It makes vocabulary teaching vivid and easy to understand and memorize. This paper discusses some methods that how the teachers learn to teach words and how the students learn to grasp words, which based on the importance and the current situation of vocabulary teaching in middle school.
文摘With the purpose of describing levels of English language proficiency expected at each stage in our school＇s Diploma and BA programs, we attempted to compare the level of courses with national standards as embodied in the national TEM4 and TEM8, and with international standards as embodied in international examinations such as Cambridge ESOL, and other descriptions such as the Common European Framework via one quantifiable parameter： vocabulary range. This is justified as vocabulary range offers an approximate but useful guide to the level of a course or a testing system. We hypothesize that the language competence at different levels of our program matches various standard proficiency examinations. Paul Nation＇s Range software was used both in its standard form using his three BASEWRD files and in an adapted form adding the authors＇ own BASEWRD files extrapolated from various levels of our textbook series. This enabled us to compare the vocabulary range of our courses with that of both national and international examinations where word lists are available or recoverable. Research results supported the hypotheses suggested.
文摘This exploratory study aims at probing into the quantitative and qualitative lexical development of freshmen and sophomores in University of Science and Technology of China, one of the top universities in China. An investigation on lexical size and depth was administered to 76 freshmen who just registered in the university, and 104 sophomores who had finished the college English course. The vocabulary size test was developed on the basis of Paul Nation's Vocabulary Levels Test, whereas vocabulary depth test was based on the lexical competency framework (Nation 1999), measuring the three types of word knowledge: spelling, meaning, and word-class knowledge of six target words. The results suggest that (1) the freshmen had a start-up vocabulary size of about 3800 words and sophomores knew about 5000 words; (2) both groups of subjects had little trouble with spelling, but their grammatical knowledge and meaning knowledge were limited; (3) meaning reception was much better than meaning production, and the reception-production gap widened in the given learning session; (4) correlations between vocabulary size and word knowledge types were relatively significant and changed with subjects' L2 proficiency, and vocabulary size test was not a good indicator of depth of word knowledge.
文摘This study aims to discover the features of lexical cohesion in Chinese college EFL Writing:whether a particular type of lexical cohesion dominates student writing,how much lexical cohesion is affected by language proficiency and text type.Results indicated a sub-category of lexical cohesive device,exact repetition,had overwhelming dominance in Chinese college EFL writing.Writers' use of lexical cohesive devices was not affected by language proficiency,but partly influenced by writing in different text types.There was no correlation between reiteration ties and text type,but students used significantly more collocation ties in narration than argumentation.
