ATTENTION, the DATES have changed!!!
Presentations are postponed to Friday, 24th (Jeffrey) and Monday, 27th (Creighton), mini lessons are therefore earlier (Wednesday, 22nd), and surveys can be emailed out earlier (Wednesday, 22nd, after my approval).
_____________________________________________________________
On Wednesday, Oct. 15th, we will have a workshop to finish up our surveys.
We agreed on a deadline for your audience to submit answers to your surveys: Wednesday, November 12th.
Then, we'll finish the surveys. Since it is a WORKSHOP, you will be required to figure the technology out through "learning by doing," and you are also welcome to discuss with your peers and exchange ideas. Remember that there are sample surveys out there, if you don't know how a matrix has to look like, for example.
Each person needs 20 questions, at least 2 of which must be matrices, and the rest varied (single choice answers, multiple answers possible, open-ended text line, open-ended text box, etc.). 4 questions must be demographic (data about subjects, such as age, gender, years of experience, income, years of study, place of living (important if you survey about dialects and slang), etc.). 16 questions are content-based (e.g., "How many minutes of grammar do you teach per lesson?")
When you make up a Likert scale (such as: strongly disagree - disagree - neutral - agree - strongly agree), remember that it is always of advantage to have five items, not four, because some people tend to choose the middle.
Make sure all your button choices make sense, and that there are few spelling mistakes in your survey.
Also, make certain that all your survey questions lead to your purpose (your research question; what you want to find out in your essay, e.g. whether Ebonics should be considered a foreign language or not. For example, to find this out, you probably won't need to ask in the demographics, "what is your monthly income" - unless you want to prove that lower income families would support/reject instruction in Ebonics. Thus, work towards your goal, and avoid useless questions. If, on the other hand, you want to find out whether female high school teachers teach more grammar in English classes than male high school teachers, you MUST ask for their gender, and analyze their answers accordingly.)
However, you WON'T USE all of your questions in your final research essay, in which you analyze the results -- you'll pick the most important ones, or the ones that had the best results. (In case you made a button mistake, your result for this question will be screwed up since the interviewees answered wrongly; DON'T USE screwed-up questions, just forget about them. You will have to make THREE GRAPHS in the end; they will focus on three specific questions important to your research purpose. You won't make a graph out of EVERY question. Some questions are just for your background knowledge, not for graphs, such as the demographics, which you will use in the part of your research essay that deals with PARTICIPANTS. This is what the section PARTICIPANTS might look like: "The participants of this study were 20 elementary school teachers, 12 females, and 8 males, ranging in age from 25-59 years. 15 were English teachers, 1 was a biology teacher, 3 were social studies teachers, and 1 was a history teacher. 80% had more than 5 years of teaching experience, 10% had 2-5 years of teaching experience, and 10% less than one year.... bla bla bla.")
TASK 1: Email me your survey URL
When you've finished your survey, create a hyperlink for it (I will model this), and email me your URL and your topic, so I can put it out on this blog. In case you don't finish your survey in class today, email it to me after class (deadline: Thursday, Oct. 16th, 10 a.m.), so that I can put it out for Friday, Oct. 17th. It does not need to be perfect yet, because we will test your survey and give you feedback on it.
TASK 2: Testing 5 peer surveys, using this Survey Grading Sheet.
Each student needs to take at least five surveys of his/her peers for testing. You can do more if you wish. Try to spread it evenly; don't all test the first five surveys that are published, but also the last ones that come in at the deadline (Thursday, 10 a.m.). Everybody needs feedback! I will take some randomly, too. Just go to the links that will be published here, and take the surveys. Fill in the Survey Grading Sheet for the surveys you test-take, and email this sheet together with some comments written in text to the author of the survey, and to me in copy to get your points for it.
EXTRA CREDIT opportunity: Some of you might have missed a piece of homework (blog entry) after the mid-term grade has been announced. If you want to make up for something missed, let me know and take an additional survey - when you email me the copy of your feedback for this survey, write in it "make up for: ______," so that I can give you a grade for this instead.) You cannot make up for assignments missed BEFORE the mid-term grade, because those grades are submitted and won't change any more.
If you missed a day AFTER the mid-term grade: an unexcused day is worth 5 extra surveys taken! Email me those 5 feedback comments, and type in, "make up for: ..... (date missed)."
TASK 3: Feedback email to 5 peers
As soon as you notice that something does not work, there is a spelling error, something is missing, the order of the question could be better, or you have a good question he/she could add, etc., email the person whose survey you took (you know the name; it's on the survey) and tell him/her what you noticed! In the end, you need to have sent FIVE EMAILS to the authors of the FIVE surveys you had to take. EMAIL ME A COPY of your feedback comments - even if you did not find any mistake - in this case, you tell the person what you liked about his/her survey. Deadline for emailing the feedback to your peers (with a copy to me) is Monday, Oct. 20th, at class time. If you haven't done your 5 feedback emails by then, you will miss points.
P.S. For those of you who abbreviate your first name - don't do it on the survey, or your peers won't be able to email you any feedback, since I created all grammar300.com emails with your long first name!!!
Preview of TENTATIVE SCHEDULE (might be subject to change, depending on how good/fast we are/I can grade ;-) ):
ATTENTION, date change for 2 presentations (a week later, so we'll email out the surveys earlier!!!):
On Friday, Oct. 24th, we will hear a presentation in LiveText by Jeffrey Ryden.
On Monday, Oct. 27th, we will hear a presentation by Creighton Jackson.
On Friday, Oct. 17th, we will:
1. test-take 5 surveys in class, filling in the Survey Grading Sheet, and emailing both with some comments in text format to the author of the surveys, and to me in copy (if you get done before class is over, you can take more for extra credit, or proceed with the "Letter of Introduction." This letter is mainly the same thing you wrote into the header of your survey (the part with the blood samples...), only a bit more elaborate, in a nice tone to address our audience, and if possible with an attention catcher in the first line, such as: "Do you believe that twin children have a disadvantage learning language??? At least, this is what some current research purports. I have created a survey to find out whether there is any truth in such previous observations. I'm a student of........ I would like you to take the survey you can find at this LINK, to help me find out more about this topic from experts and people who are directly concerned...... The deadline for taking this survey is..... bla bla bla." This letter will be typed into the email that contains our URL, which we will email out after I've approved of both. Don't send anything out before approval, because last year I got some complaints from the survey takers about buttons not working, mistakes, etc. We'll give our audience "simply the best" ;-)
2. repair our surveys according to our peer/teacher feedback that we got, and email me your final URL. Deadline for submitting the repaired URL to me by email is today, Friday, Oct. 17th, midnight. I'll give you the OK on Monday, Oct. 20th. Some of you might still need to make changes then, if I found a mistake. I will TAKE ALL SURVEY URL's off the blog when they are good to go, so that no strange people from the Internet are looking on our blog and taking your surveys, messing up the validity of your data!!! Or, I'll block all other Internet users from seeing our blog. You alone will keep your real URL, and email it out as soon as I give permission.).
3. Search the Internet for potential email addresses for our audience (such as from self-help groups of children with disabilities, or other SIU students, or public school teachers, etc.), and add them to our list of at least 20 (!) interviewees.
If you received 5 or more feedback emails already, you may proceed with "emptying your results" which I will model. See below. MAKE SURE your "results account" is completely empty from our fake test-taking before you email your survey out to your audience!!!
On Monday, Oct. 20th, we will
2. empty our "results" in http://www.surveymonkey.com/, because your peers' feedback is not from your intended audience; thus, we will delete it after having repaired/improved our surveys, to make the results account empty for the new answers of our real audience. (I will model it.)
If I have approved your letter and survey already, you can email them out on the 27th.
Then, we'll learn about the components of a Research Essay, and see / evaluate some examples from last year's 300 course.
On Wednesday, Oct. 22nd, we will email out all graded and approved letters of introduction and URL's!!!
Then, we will relax from the survey, and hear the next two mini lessons:
1) Katrina Kosma: That/Which
2) Charah Gates: Subject-Verb Agreement
3) and, if Charah can't come, Jamie Wolf on "Style"! Be prepared, please.)
Since on Wednesday, Oct. 22nd, we will email out all graded introductory letters with the URL to our audiences, you need to bring the 20 required emails of your study subjects!!! You can get them from focus groups or self-help groups/parents' groups on the Internet (about twins, autistic children, DS children, children with Tourette, etc.), from the autism center at SIU if you ask them politely, from high school/middle school/elementary school teachers anywhere in the U.S., from people you know, from fellow students, etc. You're not allowed to ask SIU faculty!!!
Then, we'll wait for 1-2 weeks for our results to come in (depending on the deadline we agreed upon). In the meantime, we'll do mini lessons, learn about how to do the statistics for the research essay (xls graphs), learn about the components of the research essay and its required format, and evaluate some sample research essays we created in grammar300 last year. If you're willing to let me use YOUR RESEARCH ESSAY for next year's grammar300 students, please let me know in an email!!! (You can do it after you've received your research essay back in December, and know your grade, or you can do it in general. If you want, I'll take out your name (indicate that!). Your collaboration would be greatly appreciated - you are allowed to see last year's examples throughout this course, too! ;-))
Links to our PRELIMINARY SURVEYS for testing:
Thanks to those who published their URL's; for those who couldn't do it, I've created the URL myself after the deadline for submission on Thursday, 10 a.m. It won't result in a point loss as long as your survey was finished, since it's not your fault I didn't model how to create the URL in our last meeting.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Grammar without Grammar: Just Playing Around, Writing
RESPONSES to this blog entry are due on Wednesday, Oct. 22nd, 2008.
___________________________________________________________
This article was basically about teaching grammar without your students knowing you are teaching them grammar.
Dean began teaching in a district that specifically addressed the teaching of grammar and sentence structure. When she tried to break down sentences and help her class identify words defined as adverbs, direct objects, adjectives and pronouns she met with blank looks and knew she was quickly losing the interest of her students. In vain she tried to find ways to incorporate grammar into everyday lessons only to be met with a scathing letter from a parent concerning her approach.
Changing methods she zeroed in on the writing of her students. She began to find ways of presenting sentences to the class that peaked their interest and met the grammar criteria. She never specifically told her class this is an adverb, that is the subject of the sentence. When she tried she lost them. She pushed on without mentioning grammar. The students became interested more because they felt it was a fun sentence game and not basic grammar.
Dean found a way to engage and teach her students without putting what she was teacing into specific context. She never said that by writing these sentences you are learning about fragments, subidornate clauses or parallel structure; but they were. The could make up a sentence and then break it down to specific subjects. They were learning and incorporating what they were learning into writing assignments. The idea of not knowing what Dean was specifically teaching them took the fear and boredom out of the lesson and made it easier to teach and therefore to learn.
This approach to grammar might not work for all teachers but clearly worked in Deans case. I found this approach refreshing and would utilize it in a classroom should I decide to teach.
___________________________________________________________
This article was basically about teaching grammar without your students knowing you are teaching them grammar.
Dean began teaching in a district that specifically addressed the teaching of grammar and sentence structure. When she tried to break down sentences and help her class identify words defined as adverbs, direct objects, adjectives and pronouns she met with blank looks and knew she was quickly losing the interest of her students. In vain she tried to find ways to incorporate grammar into everyday lessons only to be met with a scathing letter from a parent concerning her approach.
Changing methods she zeroed in on the writing of her students. She began to find ways of presenting sentences to the class that peaked their interest and met the grammar criteria. She never specifically told her class this is an adverb, that is the subject of the sentence. When she tried she lost them. She pushed on without mentioning grammar. The students became interested more because they felt it was a fun sentence game and not basic grammar.
Dean found a way to engage and teach her students without putting what she was teacing into specific context. She never said that by writing these sentences you are learning about fragments, subidornate clauses or parallel structure; but they were. The could make up a sentence and then break it down to specific subjects. They were learning and incorporating what they were learning into writing assignments. The idea of not knowing what Dean was specifically teaching them took the fear and boredom out of the lesson and made it easier to teach and therefore to learn.
This approach to grammar might not work for all teachers but clearly worked in Deans case. I found this approach refreshing and would utilize it in a classroom should I decide to teach.
Monday, October 13, 2008
In-Class, Monday, Oct. 13th: Survey Template
MEMO: Don't forget to bring your remaining questions of the 20 on Wednesday, Oct. 15th, for the workshop!!!
There are some surveys that weren't saved correctly (lastname_topic). I'm going to delete those on Wednesday, so make sure you save them in the correct way to prove who did them!!!
P.S. Make sure your first four questions deal ONLY with DEMOGRAPHICS!!! No such things as "how do you feel about Tourette"! You need 4 background questions, and 16 content-related questions.
___________________________________________________________________
Today after the two mini lessons, we are going to create our survey templates.
Log into http://www.surveymonkey.com/ with the secret login and password I give you in class. Note these down so you will be able to log in for your homework. Don't share them with anybody else.
I will model how to create the templates, and once you've created them, I will LABEL them, so you can find your survey easily. My other classes also took/take surveys, so there are lots of names out there. If you are searching for your survey, look under "My Surveys," "Current Folder," then click on the black arrow and select the LABEL "grammarians300-2,Fall2008." This folder contains the surveys from our class only.
When you've chosen the background color for your template, we will do the first four questions together. They should be roughly the same for everybody, and deal with DEMOGRAPHICS (what you want to know about your subjects' background) only:
1. gender
2. age
3. how long they've taught/studied, etc. (professional experience)
4. some detail about experience (which majors; how many children with disabilities, etc.)
Then, we are going to create an Intro for our survey which goes directly under its title (use the EDIT button). It contains the following (look at last year's sample surveys again):
INTRO
1. identify your teacher, course, and university
2. mention whom you are going to interview (your audience)
3. state your research purpose (what you want to find out)
4. mention that you don't need consent of IRB and HSC, because...
5. mention that your survey is anonymous, for in-class use only, and not for publication
6. mention deadline for data submission (how long they can answer before you need the results. ATTENTION: we didn't agree on a date yet, so you can leave the date blank for now!)
7. mention that interviewees can receive the survey results by emailing you at your @grammar300.com email
8. mention that taking this survey does not take longer than 10 min.
9. thank the interviewees for their time/cooperation.
EXAMPLE:
I, first name last name, am a student from Dr. Christina Voss' English 300-1 Language Analysis class at SIUC. For my Fall 2008 project I am exploring the opinions of foreign language instructors to ascertain whether African American English (AAE) is worthy of foreign language status. This survey does not need the consent of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Human Subject Committee (HSC), because I am using this information as an in-class activity only; it is anonymous, and not for publication; I am not taking any blood samples; and I am not surveying minors. The deadline for taking this survey is November 10th, 2008. If you would like to receive the results of this survey, please feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@grammar300.com. This survey will take you about 10 minutes to complete. Thank you very much for your time.
HOMEWORK for Wednesday, Oct. 15th:
On Wednesday, we are finishing up our online surveys in a workshop. You need to bring all your 20 questions on paper.
On Friday, Oct. 17th, we are watching a presentation in LiveText by Jeffrey Ryden. This will take the whole class session. You don't need to prepare anything.
PROMPT: Write the 16 other survey questions (we did the 4 for demographics together in class) on a piece of paper, or into an email to yourself, so all you have to do in class on Friday, Oct. 17th, is to type them into the online builder. MAKE SURE you have 20 questions altogether; some one-choice-only items; some multiple-choice-possible items, some matrices, some single-word textboxes, and some open-ended essay text boxes.................. If you only have yes/no questions, your survey will appear boring. Vary it!!! Check last year's sample surveys for ideas.
There are some surveys that weren't saved correctly (lastname_topic). I'm going to delete those on Wednesday, so make sure you save them in the correct way to prove who did them!!!
P.S. Make sure your first four questions deal ONLY with DEMOGRAPHICS!!! No such things as "how do you feel about Tourette"! You need 4 background questions, and 16 content-related questions.
___________________________________________________________________
Today after the two mini lessons, we are going to create our survey templates.
Log into http://www.surveymonkey.com/ with the secret login and password I give you in class. Note these down so you will be able to log in for your homework. Don't share them with anybody else.
I will model how to create the templates, and once you've created them, I will LABEL them, so you can find your survey easily. My other classes also took/take surveys, so there are lots of names out there. If you are searching for your survey, look under "My Surveys," "Current Folder," then click on the black arrow and select the LABEL "grammarians300-2,Fall2008." This folder contains the surveys from our class only.
When you've chosen the background color for your template, we will do the first four questions together. They should be roughly the same for everybody, and deal with DEMOGRAPHICS (what you want to know about your subjects' background) only:
1. gender
2. age
3. how long they've taught/studied, etc. (professional experience)
4. some detail about experience (which majors; how many children with disabilities, etc.)
Then, we are going to create an Intro for our survey which goes directly under its title (use the EDIT button). It contains the following (look at last year's sample surveys again):
INTRO
1. identify your teacher, course, and university
2. mention whom you are going to interview (your audience)
3. state your research purpose (what you want to find out)
4. mention that you don't need consent of IRB and HSC, because...
5. mention that your survey is anonymous, for in-class use only, and not for publication
6. mention deadline for data submission (how long they can answer before you need the results. ATTENTION: we didn't agree on a date yet, so you can leave the date blank for now!)
7. mention that interviewees can receive the survey results by emailing you at your @grammar300.com email
8. mention that taking this survey does not take longer than 10 min.
9. thank the interviewees for their time/cooperation.
EXAMPLE:
I, first name last name, am a student from Dr. Christina Voss' English 300-1 Language Analysis class at SIUC. For my Fall 2008 project I am exploring the opinions of foreign language instructors to ascertain whether African American English (AAE) is worthy of foreign language status. This survey does not need the consent of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Human Subject Committee (HSC), because I am using this information as an in-class activity only; it is anonymous, and not for publication; I am not taking any blood samples; and I am not surveying minors. The deadline for taking this survey is November 10th, 2008. If you would like to receive the results of this survey, please feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@grammar300.com. This survey will take you about 10 minutes to complete. Thank you very much for your time.
HOMEWORK for Wednesday, Oct. 15th:
On Wednesday, we are finishing up our online surveys in a workshop. You need to bring all your 20 questions on paper.
On Friday, Oct. 17th, we are watching a presentation in LiveText by Jeffrey Ryden. This will take the whole class session. You don't need to prepare anything.
PROMPT: Write the 16 other survey questions (we did the 4 for demographics together in class) on a piece of paper, or into an email to yourself, so all you have to do in class on Friday, Oct. 17th, is to type them into the online builder. MAKE SURE you have 20 questions altogether; some one-choice-only items; some multiple-choice-possible items, some matrices, some single-word textboxes, and some open-ended essay text boxes.................. If you only have yes/no questions, your survey will appear boring. Vary it!!! Check last year's sample surveys for ideas.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Rondal Down's Syndrome
There is little information presented on the study of language function in Down's Syndrome sufferers in their late adolescence or adulthood. Down's syndrome, however, is an important reference for the study of language acquisition. While looking at Down's Syndrome from this point of view, it could be possible to generalize the findings to all forms of mental retardation, although it may be necessary to categorize Down's Syndrome sufferers in their own classifiable group.
The reason for this grouping comes from the shared characteristics found in all DS people. All share around the same IQ of 45, as well as ability in non-verbal cognitive functioning, and basic communicative and linguistic development. From a language standpoint, very few DS people are so handicapped by the syndrome that they fail to develop speech, or are so little handicapped that their speech function appears normal. Such cases, should they exist, should be documented and examined. With evidence in these cases, it will be possible to know for sure if language development is different between mentally retarded and non-retarded individuals with regard to linguistic development.
Life span for DS people has gone up considerably in the last thirty years, rising from 10 to over 50. DS people make up one third of the mentally retarded population. This large number makes the desire for remediation much stronger than that of simple maintenance. Some physicians have taken to screening embryos and pregnancy termination when a genetic anomaly of this kind becomes present, but this practice can be deemed unethical as well as wasteful as it removes another individual that can be learned from.
Down's Syndrome mental development is considerably slower than standard mental development, as evinced by Gibson's mental age plateau scheme. DS people reach Plateau 1 at 4 to 6 years, while a standard learner reaches it at 18 months. Plateau 2 is reached in DS at 8-11 years, as opposed to 30 months for standard. Plateau 3 is not reached until 12 to 17 in DS, while it is reached at 40 months in standard. This shows the decline mentally from adulthood on in DS people.
Language development problems in DS can be found from an early point on. DS infants vocalize with little room for their mothers to respond, leading to vocal clashes. This shows that basic turn taking ability is slow to develop in DS infants. DS infants also experience delays in maintained eye-contact with their mothers, further slowing the language development in DS people.
Consistent words are also delayed in DS patients, with strings of consistent words not coming until 3 1/2 to 4 years of age. This is indicative of the lower linguistic function of DS people, but the answer of Down's Syndrome alone as the cause is too general. There is always the possibility of several other environmental factors that inhibit language development. It is possible that normal language input to the child given by the parent is not an optimal strategy for producing language development in children with DS.
Early language development in DS people should not be viewed as slow-motion development of language in standard learners. There are key differences in the language acquisition process. DS children use far more symbolic tokens, as well as a dedication to a routine for language that standard learners do not exhibit. Communication, however, seems to be the same for both groups at the early level.
While much is known about early development language acquisition in DS people, there has been little research to show how language is developed in late adolescent and adult DS people. One study conducted with young DS adults found that DS females are able to utilize language with more accuracy than DS males, but the rule of language simplicity was found true throughout the study. Grammatical morphology and function words provided difficulty, and were therefore avoided throughout most of the study.
The thought of a life-span intervention study is prudent, as studies have shown that language development all but stops after the age of 14 in DS people. There is a theory though that familial intervention can promote language development, as a study of an individual with familial support showed the promise of language development up until the age of 30.
In order to combat the language development problems inherent in DS people, it is clear that the only way to create a continued developmental learning strategy in DS people is to intervene with the developmental retardation throughout the DS patient's entire life, rather than during the developmental years of childhood.
The reason for this grouping comes from the shared characteristics found in all DS people. All share around the same IQ of 45, as well as ability in non-verbal cognitive functioning, and basic communicative and linguistic development. From a language standpoint, very few DS people are so handicapped by the syndrome that they fail to develop speech, or are so little handicapped that their speech function appears normal. Such cases, should they exist, should be documented and examined. With evidence in these cases, it will be possible to know for sure if language development is different between mentally retarded and non-retarded individuals with regard to linguistic development.
Life span for DS people has gone up considerably in the last thirty years, rising from 10 to over 50. DS people make up one third of the mentally retarded population. This large number makes the desire for remediation much stronger than that of simple maintenance. Some physicians have taken to screening embryos and pregnancy termination when a genetic anomaly of this kind becomes present, but this practice can be deemed unethical as well as wasteful as it removes another individual that can be learned from.
Down's Syndrome mental development is considerably slower than standard mental development, as evinced by Gibson's mental age plateau scheme. DS people reach Plateau 1 at 4 to 6 years, while a standard learner reaches it at 18 months. Plateau 2 is reached in DS at 8-11 years, as opposed to 30 months for standard. Plateau 3 is not reached until 12 to 17 in DS, while it is reached at 40 months in standard. This shows the decline mentally from adulthood on in DS people.
Language development problems in DS can be found from an early point on. DS infants vocalize with little room for their mothers to respond, leading to vocal clashes. This shows that basic turn taking ability is slow to develop in DS infants. DS infants also experience delays in maintained eye-contact with their mothers, further slowing the language development in DS people.
Consistent words are also delayed in DS patients, with strings of consistent words not coming until 3 1/2 to 4 years of age. This is indicative of the lower linguistic function of DS people, but the answer of Down's Syndrome alone as the cause is too general. There is always the possibility of several other environmental factors that inhibit language development. It is possible that normal language input to the child given by the parent is not an optimal strategy for producing language development in children with DS.
Early language development in DS people should not be viewed as slow-motion development of language in standard learners. There are key differences in the language acquisition process. DS children use far more symbolic tokens, as well as a dedication to a routine for language that standard learners do not exhibit. Communication, however, seems to be the same for both groups at the early level.
While much is known about early development language acquisition in DS people, there has been little research to show how language is developed in late adolescent and adult DS people. One study conducted with young DS adults found that DS females are able to utilize language with more accuracy than DS males, but the rule of language simplicity was found true throughout the study. Grammatical morphology and function words provided difficulty, and were therefore avoided throughout most of the study.
The thought of a life-span intervention study is prudent, as studies have shown that language development all but stops after the age of 14 in DS people. There is a theory though that familial intervention can promote language development, as a study of an individual with familial support showed the promise of language development up until the age of 30.
In order to combat the language development problems inherent in DS people, it is clear that the only way to create a continued developmental learning strategy in DS people is to intervene with the developmental retardation throughout the DS patient's entire life, rather than during the developmental years of childhood.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Friday, Oct. 10th: Intro to Research Project
HOMEWORK for Monday, Oct. 13th:
Read this introduction to our research project, and also look at the links I provided!
Make up your mind about your topic, and sign up for it on my list on Monday, Oct. 13th. Multiple entries for the same topic are possible.
Today after the movie, we're going to start our big semester project: the research essay. This will take about a month altogether to complete.
At first, we will discuss the difference between
REVIEW ESSAY (a collage of different research articles that are compared, contrasted, and evaluated. No self-collected data.)
and
RESEARCH ESSAY (self-collected data that verifies or contradicts existing research which is previously discussed in the literature review of this paper).
The project of your RESEARCH essay consists of three parts:
- an online survey you will create with SurveyMonkey.com using an account for which I will provide you a with password (don’t sign up for the free trial; its functions are limited. I’ll give you the paid for version with more features).
- a report sheet this online survey builder will build for you. It will contain all the data you need taken out of the answers from your survey.
- a research article of about 8-10 pages you will write about your results in a given format. You will attach your report sheet to it as an annex, and you will create three xls graphs for your data statistics. You will cite 3 published and peer-reviewed research articles from a scientific journal in your Literature Review, and add an Annotated Bibliography in APA for these three articles.
NOTE: if you take this course at a 400-level, you will write 12-15 pages, and you will cite 5 published and peer-reviewed research articles from a scientific journal.
Today, we'll only deal with step 1, how to create online surveys with SurveyMonkey.com
First, we are going to look at a few sample surveys we’ve created in ENGL 300-1 last semester:
A. Understanding Autism Through SupervisionB. What Second Language Teachers Think About AAE/Ebonics as Second Language
C. a) Language Acquisition Among Twins
b) It's Cause We Is Twins?
D. Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL)
E. Learning a Foreign Language
I am going to model how to create the template. You all have to name your surveys the following way:
Lastname_topic
For example:
Voss_grammar
If your topic name is really long, abbreviate it. For example, don’t write “apraxia in children with Down’s syndrome,” but call it “DS apraxia.”
You have to save your online survey under the correct label for your class I’ve created (either 300-1Fall 08, or 300-2 Fall 08).
Your further TASKS will be:
1) to pick a topic that in some way deals with "language acquisition" (not confined to pure grammar). You can take any topic we’ve talked about before, such as ESL, AAVE, Asian ESL learners, slang, dialect, accent, autism, twins, Tourette, Down’s syndrome, grammar teaching, grammar learning, dyslexia, apraxia, or invent your own topic. You can also make up a survey consisting entirely of grammar quizzes, to find out how much your interviewees know about grammar, and what types of grammar they know least about.
2) to figure out who your audience is going to be (will your questionnaire be for students, parents, teachers, education majors, or guardians; or relatives/parents of autistic or disabled children? We have an autism center in WHAM downstairs, in case you want to find contact persons there.) NOTE: You are NOT allowed to do the survey with any faculty members of SIU!!!
3) to assemble questions on paper about your topic that you might ask in the survey
4) to note down emails of 20 (no more and no less!) persons you are going to interview. Take into consideration that many people don't answer email surveys. So, if you address 20 people, count on it that 50% won't respond, anyway. If you have less than 10 interviewees, that won't give you a valuable research basis, and your survey will be void.
We will do these preliminary tasks on Monday 13th, Wednesday 15th, and Friday 17th next week in class. If you miss a class session, you have to do them at home; otherwise, you’ll get left behind and won’t be able to use the software simultaneously with the others.
We will create a URL for our online survey and email it out to our interviewees (AFTER I have given my consent in written form that your letter and survey are ready for publication!). Accompanying this URL will be a friendly letter of introduction no longer than one page. Here’s the prompt (we will do this on Wednesday, Oct. 15th, together in class):
1) Write a letter of introduction to the persons you will interview. State
- your name;
- class;
- instructor;
- why you do this survey;
- that you don't need consent by the Human Subjects Committee (HSC)/ Institutional Review Board (IRB) of SIU to conduct this survey, because it doesn't involve minors, or take blood samples, and is not for publication but for in-class practice only;
- that the survey is anonymous
- what the aim of your survey is
- how long it will take (not longer than 10 minutes)
- what the deadline is for taking the surveys, before you close them for data analysis
- that your subjects can have the results of your survey from you, when it is finished
- how you will compensate them for taking the survey, if you do that
- say THANK YOU for taking the survey.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Next Blog Summary Text: Down's Syndrome
Under this link, you can find our new blog summary text about Down's Syndrome by J.A. Rondal.
The summary is due on Friday, Oct. 10th, by David Tabler.
The responses are due next Monday, Oct. 13th.
I will distribute the movie guide for the Down's syndrome movie we are going to watch in class today (and probably finish up this Friday).
The movie guide won't be collected for a grade, but you should take notes under the corresponding headings while watching it, because five of these might be on the final exam.
If you miss class today or Friday, it is your responsibility to copy a peer's movie guide so you have something to learn from for your final exam in December.
The summary is due on Friday, Oct. 10th, by David Tabler.
The responses are due next Monday, Oct. 13th.
I will distribute the movie guide for the Down's syndrome movie we are going to watch in class today (and probably finish up this Friday).
The movie guide won't be collected for a grade, but you should take notes under the corresponding headings while watching it, because five of these might be on the final exam.
If you miss class today or Friday, it is your responsibility to copy a peer's movie guide so you have something to learn from for your final exam in December.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Speeded processing of grammar and tool knowledge in Tourette’s syndrome
"Tourette's syndrome (TS) is a developmental disorder characterized by motor and verbal tics. These tics are typically fast and involuntary and result from abnormality in the brain. They can be vocalizations or motor movements and may be very simple to very complex. It has been linked to abnormal levels of dopamine, which serves as a crucial neurotransmitter in the regions of the brain associated with TS. Most studies to date have examined vocal tics from a neuropsychological standpoint rather than looking at actual language.
The authors of this article propose that knowledge of grammatical morphology is stored in two places, depending on its nature. One, the lexicon, stores forms that break the rules, such as the past tense of spring. Because it breaks the general "add -ed" rule, it is memorized in a rote form and stored in the student's lexicon. However, words that do follow the rule are not stored individually, but the rule is stored in the grammar. These are stored in completely separate regions of the brain. The lexicon, being primarily declarative in nature, is dependant on the hippocampus. The procedural memory (grammar) relies strongly on the frontal/basal-ganglia circuits. This is the same area of the brain affected by TS. Dopamine is highly important to this entire system. These differing localizations for memory lead to relatively normal delcarative memory in those with TS, while procedural memory can be abnormal in many ways.
One such way procedural memory can be affected is in the actual learning of something procedural. Severe difficulty in a weather-prediction task indicates that this difficulty may root back to the caudate nucleus. Other tasks involving other procedural memory structures are not as consistantly affected. Other procedural tasks (goal-directed movement) seem to be enhanced in TS males. Also, mental rotation seems to be impaired in TS males, but improved in TS females. Research and biology both support that the acetylcholine-based declarative memory system remains largely ufaffected by TS.
Given this background information, the authors conducted a study of TS patients (7 male, 1 female) and their abilities with language. The participants were diagnosed by the criteria in the Tourette's Syndrome Study Group (1993) and were not excluded for expressing comorbidity of ADHD or OCD, as these commonly occur with TS. Five of the seven children were taking medication for TS. 7 male and 1 female, normally-developing children were used as controls. Subjects were asked to produce past tense verbs presented in sentence contexts using four types of verbs (consistent regulars, irregulars, inconsistent regulars, and novel (made up) verbs).
Subjects were then presented with 96 items (32 items commonly manipulated or interacted with, 32 items rarely manipulated or interacted with, and 32 filler items) and timed on how long it took them to name the depicted item.
The researchers results reflected no significant difference in production of irregular verb forms, inconsistant regulars, over-regularization errors, regularized, or irregularized errors. The only noteworthy difference was in production of consistant regular past tenses, for which TS subjects showed a nearly-significant deficit. With respect to time, the TS subjects were significantly faster than the controls on consistent regulars, over-regularization errors, and regularized responses to novel verbs, but not significantly faster on irregulars, inconsistent regulars, and irregularized responses.
In the naming task, TS subjects did not differ from the control group for naming of either type of object and there was no within-group difference between the types of items, either. TS subjects responded significantly faster on manipulated objects, but not on non-manipulated objects.
The fact that a difference of time, but not of accuracy was found set the researchers to figuring out why. Typical confounds were quickly eliminated by research design. One could quickly argue that this supports a single-mechanism model of language (only uses declarative memory). However, the word traits that generally support a single-mechanism model were also controlled for. These models also generally explain accuracy, which did not significantly vary. The results support a conclusion that language production depends in part on procedural memory and that the abnormalities in procedural memory cause faster-than-normal responses in TS subjects. The researchers then discuss language processes and trends that could result in significantly faster response times. They then assert that these findings support that the rapid tics and vocalizations are merely a visible indicator of the fact that many things are sped up, including cognitive processes.
The authors of this article propose that knowledge of grammatical morphology is stored in two places, depending on its nature. One, the lexicon, stores forms that break the rules, such as the past tense of spring. Because it breaks the general "add -ed" rule, it is memorized in a rote form and stored in the student's lexicon. However, words that do follow the rule are not stored individually, but the rule is stored in the grammar. These are stored in completely separate regions of the brain. The lexicon, being primarily declarative in nature, is dependant on the hippocampus. The procedural memory (grammar) relies strongly on the frontal/basal-ganglia circuits. This is the same area of the brain affected by TS. Dopamine is highly important to this entire system. These differing localizations for memory lead to relatively normal delcarative memory in those with TS, while procedural memory can be abnormal in many ways.
One such way procedural memory can be affected is in the actual learning of something procedural. Severe difficulty in a weather-prediction task indicates that this difficulty may root back to the caudate nucleus. Other tasks involving other procedural memory structures are not as consistantly affected. Other procedural tasks (goal-directed movement) seem to be enhanced in TS males. Also, mental rotation seems to be impaired in TS males, but improved in TS females. Research and biology both support that the acetylcholine-based declarative memory system remains largely ufaffected by TS.
Given this background information, the authors conducted a study of TS patients (7 male, 1 female) and their abilities with language. The participants were diagnosed by the criteria in the Tourette's Syndrome Study Group (1993) and were not excluded for expressing comorbidity of ADHD or OCD, as these commonly occur with TS. Five of the seven children were taking medication for TS. 7 male and 1 female, normally-developing children were used as controls. Subjects were asked to produce past tense verbs presented in sentence contexts using four types of verbs (consistent regulars, irregulars, inconsistent regulars, and novel (made up) verbs).
Subjects were then presented with 96 items (32 items commonly manipulated or interacted with, 32 items rarely manipulated or interacted with, and 32 filler items) and timed on how long it took them to name the depicted item.
The researchers results reflected no significant difference in production of irregular verb forms, inconsistant regulars, over-regularization errors, regularized, or irregularized errors. The only noteworthy difference was in production of consistant regular past tenses, for which TS subjects showed a nearly-significant deficit. With respect to time, the TS subjects were significantly faster than the controls on consistent regulars, over-regularization errors, and regularized responses to novel verbs, but not significantly faster on irregulars, inconsistent regulars, and irregularized responses.
In the naming task, TS subjects did not differ from the control group for naming of either type of object and there was no within-group difference between the types of items, either. TS subjects responded significantly faster on manipulated objects, but not on non-manipulated objects.
The fact that a difference of time, but not of accuracy was found set the researchers to figuring out why. Typical confounds were quickly eliminated by research design. One could quickly argue that this supports a single-mechanism model of language (only uses declarative memory). However, the word traits that generally support a single-mechanism model were also controlled for. These models also generally explain accuracy, which did not significantly vary. The results support a conclusion that language production depends in part on procedural memory and that the abnormalities in procedural memory cause faster-than-normal responses in TS subjects. The researchers then discuss language processes and trends that could result in significantly faster response times. They then assert that these findings support that the rapid tics and vocalizations are merely a visible indicator of the fact that many things are sped up, including cognitive processes.
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