Communicative competence in Spanish-English cross-cultural language education : some pedagogic strategies drawn from the national arts.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

A Communicative Approach to Testing : II parte.

Se recogen una serie de actividades en inglés a modo de pruebas de evaluación sobre contenidos interdisciplinares relativos al medio ambiente. El objetivo es relacionar la lengua inglesa con otras asignaturas, potenciando al mismo tiempo la capacidad lingüístico-comunicativa de los alumnos en otro idioma (investigación, análisis de datos, deducciones lógicas, argumentación, etc). El material utilizado son artículos de periódicos y revistas, fragmentos de programas de televisión, cómics, etc y va dirigido a jóvenes del nuevo bachillerato..

A Communicative Approach to Testing. 'Una aproximación comunicativa a la evaluación'.

El presente documento realiza un estudio sobre los distintos criterios y técnicas de evaluación que se pueden aplicar al conocimiento de la asignatura de lengua inglesa por parte de los alumnos. Se valorará la participación de éstos en conversaciones breves, la redacción de textos sencillos con una estructura lógica, el establecimiento de comparaciones para establecer semejanzas y diferencias entre objetos, personas, etc., la capacidad para comprender textos sencillos... Los contenidos están dirigidos a alumnos de tercero y cuarto curso de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria.

Keep talking : communicative fluency activities for language teaching.

Guía práctica con actividades de comunicación para la enseñanza del inglés como segundo idioma, adecuado para su uso con alumnos desde el nivel elemental al avanzado. Está dividido en dos partes, la primera contiene instrucciones para cien ejercicios diferentes, incluyendo entrevistas, juegos de adivinanzas, rompecabezas, resolución de problemas, mímica, juegos de rol y cuenta cuentos. Cada actividad va acompañada de notas sobre sus objetivos lingüísticos y educativos, el nivel, la organización, el tiempo y la preparación necesaria. La segunda parte incluye las hojas de trabajo para cada actividad, una tabla con todos los ejercicios y un índice para facilitar la consulta del libro.

Holistic versus communicative approach in assesing oral production in English. 'Aproximación holística versus aproximación comunicativa en la evaluación de la producción oral en inglés'.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Learning communicative competences through celebrity gossip blogs

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

The development of language and communicative behaviors in deaf/hearing twins

This paper examines language development in twins--one that is hearing and the other that is hearing impaired.

Infant vocabulary development assessed with a British communicative development inventory

Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) were collected from 669 British children aged between 1;0 and 2;1. Comprehension and production scores in each age group are calculated. This provides norming data for the British infant population. The influence of socioeconomic group on vocabulary scores is considered and shown not to have a significant effect. The data from British infants is compared to data from American infants (Fenson, Dale, Reznick, Bates, Thal & Pethick, 1994). It is found that British infants have lower scores on both comprehension and production than American infants of the same age.

The music instinct: the evolutionary basis of musicality

Why does music pervade our lives and those of all known human beings living today and in the recent past? Why do we feel compelled to engage in musical activity, or at least simply enjoy listening to music even if we choose not to actively participate? I argue that this is because musicality—communication using variations in pitch, rhythm, dynamics and timbre, by a combination of the voice, body (as in dance), and material culture—was essential to the lives of our pre-linguistic hominin ancestors. As a consequence we have inherited a desire to engage with music, even if this has no adaptive benefit for us today as a species whose communication system is dominated by spoken language. In this article I provide a summary of the arguments to support this view.

Children's Vocabulary Development : The role of parental input, vocabulary composition and early communicative skills

The aim of this thesis is to examine the early vocabulary development of a sample of Swedish children in relation to parental input and early communicative skills. Three studies are situated in an overall description of early language development in children. The data analyzed in the thesis was collected within a larger project at Stockholm University (SPRINT- “Effects of enhanced parental input on young children’s vocabulary development and subsequent literacy development” [VR 2008-5094]). Data analysis was based on parental report via SECDI, the Swedish version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, and audio recordings. One study examined parental verbal interaction characteristics in three groups of children with varying vocabulary size at 18 months. The stability of vocabulary development at 18 and 24 months was investigated in a larger study, with focus on children’s vocabulary composition and grammatical abilities. The third study examined interrelations among early gestures, receptive and productive vocabulary, and grammar measured with M3L, i.e. three longest utterances, from 12 to 30 months. Overall results of the thesis highlight the importance of early language development. Variability in different characteristics in parental input is associated with variability in child vocabulary size. Children with large early vocabularies exhibit the most stability in vocabulary composition and the earliest grammatical development. Children’s vocabulary composition may reflect individual stylistic variation. Use of early gestures is associated differentially with receptive and productive vocabulary. Results of the thesis have implications for parents, child- and healthcare personnel, as well as researchers and educational practitioners. The results underscore the importance of high quality in adult-child interaction, with rich input fine-tuned to children’s developmental levels and age, together with high awareness of early language development.

Students’ Perspectives on Extensive Literature : Using Literature to Enhance Communicative Competence and Cultural Understanding in the EFL-Classroom

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the use of literature within the Swedish Upper Secondary EFL-classroom from the students’ perspective. How do the students in the study relate to literature and its use to enhance and enable their communicative competence and cultural understanding? Also, how do their answers compare with their teacher’s and the adult perspectives and findings from previous international research? The empirical data obtained from the study has been analysed from the perspectives of sociocultural and motivational theory, and the findings show that the participating students believe literature to be a good didactic tool to apply in the EFL-classroom, both in order to enhance their communicative competence and their cultural understanding. The students prefer to have a sociocultural approach to their literature-learning, with group-discussions of various sizes. The key for the students in this respect is interesting, relevant and engaging subject-matter, as well as a positive and motivational teacher. The responses given by the students correlate with those given by their teacher as well as previous international research. The students regard literature as a way of gaining new perspectives, as well as experiencing language in use. Where they diverge somewhat from the international research is in regard to literature’s use for enhancing their competence to speak in class, and that some students seem to think that communication and cultural understanding are separable. Future studies within this field might include the conducting of a larger and more in-depth survey regarding the students’ ideas about literature, culture and communication. Why do so many of the student respondents neither agree nor disagree with the statement concerning communication and cultural understanding being inseparable? This can be an important issue to investigate in today’s global climate of cross-cultural and intercultural experiences, especially in view of the political climate of diverse attitudes towards refugees, immigrants and emigration