The place of (explicit) grammar within the methods and approaches of foreign language teaching: in the north, in the centre or on the margins?

This article analyzes the role that has been attributed to grammar throughout the history of foreign language teaching, with special emphasis on methods and approaches of the twentieth century. In order to support our argument, we discuss the notion of grammar by proposing a conceptual continuum that includes the main meanings of the term which are relevant to our research. We address as well the issue of "pedagogical grammar" and consider the position of grammar in the different approaches of the "era of the methods" and the current "post-method condition" in the field of language teaching and learning. The findings presented at the end of the text consist of recognizing the central role that grammar has played throughout the history of the methods and approaches, where grammar has always been present by the definition of the contents' progression. The rationale that we propose for this is the recognition of the fact that the dissociation between what is said and how it is said can not be more than theoretical and, thus, artificial.

Questionnaire for monitoring auditory and language development in the first year of life

Purpose: To validate a monitoring questionnaire about hearing and language development applied by community health agents in the first year of life. Methods: Seventy six community health agents, previously trained on infant hearing health, administered a questionnaire to the families of 304 children with ages from 0 to 1 year. The questionnaire contains questions regarding hearing and language development and, for all age groups, the question “Does your child hear well?” was presented. The validity of the questionnaire was assessed by analyzing false positive and false negative rates of the identified children. A double-blind study was conducted so that all children assessed by the questionnaire were submitted to hearing evaluation performed by audiologists. Results: Four children (1.32%) were diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss (two unilateral), and 69 (22.7%) with conductive hearing loss. The monitoring questionnaire showed specificity of 96% and sensitivity of 67%, with a false-negative rate of 33% for not identifying the unilateral hearing loss, and a false-positive rate of 4%. Conclusion: The questionnaire used has shown to be feasible and relevant to actions of the community health agents of the Family Health Strategy program, with high specificity and moderate sensitivity. The use of the validated instrument should be considered to complement Newborn Hearing Screening Programs, in order to identify late onset or acquired hearing loss.

The complexity of narrative interferes in the use of conjunctions in children with specific language impairment

PURPOSE: To verify the use of conjunctions in narratives, and to investigate the influence of stimuli's complexity over the type of conjunctions used by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical language development. METHODS: Participants were 40 children (20 with typical language development and 20 with SLI) with ages between 7 and 10 years, paired by age range. Fifteen stories with increasing of complexity were used to obtain the narratives; stories were classified into mechanical, behavioral and intentional, and each of them was represented by four scenes. Narratives were analyzed according to occurrence and classification of conjunctions. RESULTS: Both groups used more coordinative than subordinate conjunctions, with significant decrease in the use of conjunctions in the discourse of SLI children. The use of conjunctions varied according to the type of narrative: for coordinative conjunctions, both groups differed only between intentional and behavioral narratives, with higher occurrence in behavioral ones; for subordinate conjunctions, typically developing children's performance did not show differences between narratives, while SLI children presented fewer occurrences in intentional narratives, which was different from other narratives. CONCLUSION: Both groups used more coordinative than subordinate conjunctions; however, typically developing children presented more conjunctions than SLI children. The production of children with SLI was influenced by stimulus, since more complex narratives has less use of subordinate conjunctions.