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Eleni Agathopoulou, Despina Papadopoulou, Ksenija Zmijanjac
Noun-adjective agreement in l2 greek and the
effect of input-based instruction
We investigated the non-native acquisition of adjective-noun
agreement in Greek and whether this interlanguage structure was
affected by input-based, meaning-oriented instruction. The
participants were adults from an array of mother tongues and with
low intermediate proficiency in Greek. The findings from three
production tasks showed that the main errors consisted in
phonological matching between the adjectival and the nominal
inflectional morphemes, as well as in inflecting the adjective with
a suffix –o, underspecified for agreement features. There were no
important differences with respect to errors in gender, number or
case features. A group of the learners received Processing
Instruction and another group received Focus on Form instruction.
Results showed significant learner improvement for both types of
instruction but more for the Focus on Form one. Also, instruction
type affected learner errors differentially.
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Thomai Alexiou, James Milton
Vocabulary size in greek as a foreign language
and the common european framework of reference for languages
This paper reports on the construction and use of a vocabulary size
test in Greek as a foreign language. The vocabulary sizes of groups
of learners at various language levels have been calculated and from
this it is clear that a vocabulary size measurement is a good
indicator of learners’ level within the CEFR. Elementary learners
are likely to know less than 3,000 of the most frequent 5,000 words,
Intermediate learners between 3,000 and 4,000, and advanced learners
over 4,000 words on this test. It appears that rather more words are
required in Greek to achieve levels of coverage associated with gist
and full comprehension of texts, than would be the case in English
or in French implying that Greek is more lexically demanding of
learners. However, better and parallel corpora from which to derive
the frequency lists used as the basis of testing would make this
interpretation much clearer.
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Niovi
Antonopoulou, Carol Everhard, Ed Joycey
Use of peer-assessment and self-assessment
with students in tertiary-level education
Peer- and self-assessment, as part of alternative/authentic1
assessment, would seem to contribute both to the evaluation of
learners’ language knowledge and of learners’ language performance.
The research which was undertaken aimed to discover: (a) what
information the marking patterns emerging from the deployment of
peerassessment and self-assessment as well as instructor-assessment
may provide, and (b) how students respond to such involvement in the
assessment process. In the case of (a), this was achieved by means
of direct measures of assessment of oral and written performance
collected from university students who participated in alternative
methods, and in the case of (b), through indirect measures gained
from discussions and from the completion of a follow-up
questionnaire. The research was undertaken, not only with the aim of
throwing more light on the topic of peer-assessment and
self-assessment, but with the expectation that the students involved
as participants in this project would find the university courses
they had taken more interesting due to their enhanced awareness, and
that there would be an increase in the effectiveness of their
learning because of this.
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Alireza Jalilifar
Generic and linguistic analysis of english and
persian blurbs
The concepts of genre and genre analysis have provided valid
responses for various types of generic-oriented texts including
blurbs which have been favored by authors due to their effective
role in selling their books. The main purpose of this study was to
identify discoursal patterns, linguistic features, and
non-linguistic strategies between English and Persian applied
linguistics and literature blurbs in order to locate disciplinary
and interdisciplinary similarities and differences. To this end, 160
blurbs written in English and Persian (80 blurbs from each language)
were selected and analyzed. The findings demonstrated that each of
the two disciplines, despite their minor linguistic and
non-linguistic similarities, constituted divergent rhetorical
patterns which imply that their discourse communities hardly
communicate with each other. This reveals that applied linguistics
and literature blurbs are structurally different and have been
formed and shaped for carrying out and meeting divergent needs.
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Ifigenia
Mahili
Learner beliefs about strategies, autonomy and
motivation, and their underlying factors
This paper explores the different beliefs of Greek higher education
students who were subjected to two different approaches to autonomy:
Gradual autonomy, which was implemented in degrees within a
classroom context, and complete autonomy, which was implemented in
an out-of-class counseling context. Specifically the study addresses
(a) the effect of autonomy on the students’ beliefs and (b) the
differences of the two approaches in terms of their effect on
student beliefs. Emerging clusters of beliefs and the background
variables underlying their choice post experiment were also
investigated. Results show that a gradual approach to autonomy is
more easily accepted by Greek students, and that the background
variables of their prior learning experiences, extrinsic and
intrinsic motivation, parental education, and rural and urban
upbringing had a strong effect on their beliefs about learning
English as a foreign language, autonomy, course motivation, and
strategies.
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Φρίντα Χαραλαμποπούλου
Η κατάκτηση της γραμματικής στην υποβοηθουμένη
από υπολογιστή εκμάθηση της ξένης γλώσσας: προτάσεις εκπαιδευτικής
αξιοποίησης των τεχνολογικών δυνατοτήτων
Although grammar teaching has undergone many phases, its place in
foreign language learning has received renewed attention and its
status has been upgraded. According to recent theories based on a
substantial body of research in second language acquisition,
form-focused instruction contributes to language learning.
Therefore, grammar teaching is an essential component, however it
should be approached within a communicative functional framework.
This paper aims to suggest approaches and explore ways and
techniques to facilitate grammar acquisition in Modern Greek by
adult learners in the context of Computer-Assisted Language Learning
(CALL). In such a learning paradigm, the electronic medium provides
technologies and tools which may facilitate the adult learner to
focus on various aspects of the language code per se and create the
conditions for the development of the declarative knowledge in the
target language. |
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