Learning in context: linguistic and attentional constraints on children's color term learning.

Running Head: COLOR TERM ACQUISITION Learning in Context: Linguistic and attentional constraints on children's color term learning

Whose DAM account? Attentional learning explains Booth and Waxman.

Booth and Waxman (Cognition 84 (2002) B11) have recently shown that linguistic cues to animacy affect children's novel name extensions. They argue that this demonstration contradicts two central tenets of our attentional learning account of object naming, which Booth and Waxman characterize as the "dumb attentional mechanism" or "DAM" account. In the present article, we show that the first of t...

Short- vs. Long-Term Effects of Reactive Incidental Focus on Form in Free Discussion EFL Classes

This study investigated the effectiveness of reactive incidental focus on form (FonF) for each learner with regard to different linguistic categories in meaning-oriented EFL classes. To this end, 30 hr of meaningful interactions of upper-intermediate EFL learners were audio-recorded in 2 free discussion classes. Instances of reactive incidental focus-on-form episodes (FFEs), where teachers offe...

Inhibition and Adjective Learning in Bilingual and Monolingual Children

The ability to control attention - by inhibiting pre-potent, yet no longer relevant information - is an essential skill in all of human learning, and increasing evidence suggests that this ability is enhanced in language learning environments in which the learner is managing and using more than one language. One question waiting to be addressed is whether such efficient attentional control play...

The Influence of Data-Driven Exercises Through Using a Computer Program on Vocabulary Improvement in an EFL Context

The present study was conducted to evaluate data driven learning (DDL) combined with Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) as an approach to improving vocabulary knowledge of Iranian postgraduates majoring in teaching English, English literature and translation. The purpose was to help language learners get familiar with DDL as a student-centered method taking advantage of a computer progr...