Proper coordination of oogenesis, ovulation, and fertilization is essential for successful reproduction. In Caenorhabditis elegans, a strong loss-of-function mutation in dpl-1, which encodes a subunit of the E2F heterodimeric transcription factor EFL-1/DPL-1, causes severe defects during ovulation and fertilization. Here we demonstrate that the somatic gonad structure and sheath cell contractio...

Writing in English might be one of the most difficult tasks for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners. This paper presents FLOW, a writing assistance system. It is built based on first-language-oriented input function and context sensitive approach, aiming at providing immediate and appropriate suggestions including translations, paraphrases, and n-grams during composing and revising pro...

Storytelling is a practical and powerful teaching tool, especially for language learning. Teachers in language classrooms, however, may hesitate to incorporate storytelling into language instruction because of an already overloaded curriculum. English foreign language (EFL) teachers in Taiwan report additional problems such as having little prior experience with integrating storytelling into la...

Vocabulary learning and teaching has been one of the main issues in ESL/EFL learning and teaching research. EFL teachers in China, in particular, are grappling with the effective vocabulary teaching methods. This paper is doing part of this job in a different way. It discusses three principles based on Cognitive Linguistics (CL), namely the study of categorization, prototype, and metaphor, and ...

When students in Taiwan enter into higher education, the reading demands placed upon them often lead them to select ineffective and inefficient strategies with little strategic intent. To investigate how reading strategy use affects the development of Taiwanese EFL learners’ reading comprehension, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship and differences of four reading strategy...

This study investigated whether Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL learners hereafter) could use prosodic cues to resolve syntactically ambiguous sentences in English. 8 sentences with 3 types of syntactic ambiguity were adopted. They were far/near PP attachment, left/right word attachment and wide/narrow scope. In the production experiment, 15 Chinese college students who p...

Large phasic variations of respiratory mechanical impedance (Zrs) have been observed during induced expiratory flow limitation (EFL) (M. Vassiliou, R. Peslin, C. Saunier, and C. Duvivier. Eur. Respir. J. 9: 779-786, 1996). To clarify the meaning of Zrs during EFL, we have measured from 5 to 30 Hz the input impedance (Zin) of mechanical analogues of the respiratory system, including flow-limitin...

Language is not only the representation of thinking, but also shapes thinking. Studies on bilinguals suggest that a foreign language plays an important and unconscious role in thinking. In this study, a software-Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2007-was used to investigate whether the learning of English as a foreign language (EFL) can foster Chinese high school students' English analytic thin...

This study was designed to examine EFL student writers majoring in English as a foreign language at university level in Iran to describe their vocabulary related problems and the strategies they used to overcome these problems. Thirty EFL students were given a writing task for think-aloud composing. The resulting protocols were coded and analysed. The data were examined in relation to vocabular...

Structural priming refers to the tendency of speakers to reuse the same structural pattern as one that was previously encountered (Bock, 1986). The effectiveness of structural priming has been an issue of much discussion in the field of second language acquisition over decades. This study aims at investigating the role of structural priming in Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learner...