Summary and Critique Effects of retention intervals on receiver operating characteristics in artificial grammar learning

Documentation:

Tunney, R. J., & Bezzina, G. (2007). Effects of retention intervals on receiver operating characteristics in artificial grammar learning. Acta Psychologica, 125, 37-50.

 

summary

 

        In the past three decades, research showed that recollection and familiarity played an important role in recognition.  Indeed, they made progresses on the discovery, which is from observing memorization in AGL to understanding dual process in AGL.  However, the insight of implication in the relationship between recollection and familiarity toward AGL was not brought out.  Thus, the aim of this study, beside reviewing the past thirty years literatures, is to provide further evidence for episodic memory in AGL by examining the effects of retention intervals on recollection and familiarity.  Also, the dissociation between recollection and familiarity that involves in AGL is also examined in this study.  A experiment was administered for the purpose of this study.  In the experiment, twenty-nine people of the University of Nottingham community participated in this study.  Twenty-four were female, and five were male.  Sequences generated by the AGL were presented to participants for ten times in separated blocks.  Later on, participants would take the test by pressing either "yes, I have seen the sequence before" or "no, I have seen this before" on the computer.  And, tests were administered in three different day; that is, the immediate day the receive the knowledge, seven days after, and two weeks after.  Also, participants were asked to answer how confident they were in accuracy of their decision on a ten point scale after each tests.  After analyzing the collected data by applying ROC curves, the results showed that the findings of effects by using recollection and familiarity were the same.  Furthermore, according to the slope of zROC curves, the recognition decisions for the first tests were based on recollection more than familiarity; whereas, the last tests recognition decisions were based on familiarity more than recollection.  The limitations were discovered in the discussion part as well.

 

Critique

 

        After reading this journal article, there are still pros and cons that I am going to illustrate in the below.

 

        Basically, the value of this study can not be ignored.  Reviewing the past thirty years data is quite clear that readers would have a complete idea about the motivation.  And, there is no doubt that experiments were conducted precisely since the arrangement of the three-times tests items indeed matched the purposes of this research.  Besides, by using zROC curves, results of collected and analyzed data is presented and explained thoroughly as well as the discussion part.

 

        Still, there are some flaws needed to be improved.  First of all, the literature review part seems to be separated into two parts, which one of them was put together with the introduction part, and the other one was put into the discussion part.  This way, I find it hard to scan for key points since the article is not well-organized.  Besides, the group of participants were really too small, and the proficiency of those participants was not included in the article even if it may cause little influence to the result or the whole study.   More importantly, whether the result, done by artificial grammar task, could be put into the environment of natural language learning or not still requires further evidence because natural language is considered to be more complicated.


 

Summary and Critique Implicit learning of a recursive rule in an artificial grammar Poletiek, E. H. (2002)

Documentation:

Poletiek, E. H. (2002). Implicit learning of a recursive rule in an artificial grammar.   Acta Psychologica, 111, 323-335.

 

Summary

        The ability of people to learn structural knowledge by simply introducing them examples of these structures has been brought out for many years.  Due to the fact that either studies or researchers advocates different perspectives, which vary from unconscious acquisition of abstract knowledge to conscious acquisition of segmental examples.  Thus, the aim of this research was to explore the learning ability of a specific abstractive system through artificial grammar learning tasks, that's recursive grammar.  A series of preparations were done before starting the task.  First of all, an artificial grammar graphic was adapted and extended for the satisfaction of recursion.  Next, a large amount of exemplars that were needed to present to participants for previewing and for testing were set between nine to thirteen letters.  Exemplars were created to include zero to three self-embedding features, and they were made into fifty-nine correct and incorrect structures equally.  For the tentative tasks, two parts which the first one was about to recognize the feature of recursive rules by taking true and false question items selected on the computer program and the other was post-interviewing of participants strategies use during the tests were included.  Several hypotheses were proposed before testing.  One, the recursive operation could be learned in AGL tasks.  Two, structures with zero and two self-embedding levels were much easier to recognize.  Three, structures with one and three levels were more difficult to acquire.  Four, generative aspect of recursive rules could also be learned in the limited exposure of examples.  Yet, tests and interviews results showed that participants memorize especially two or three letters to answer questions.  After revising the hypotheses, the second tests were conducted on the premise that question items had been reset, and self-embedding elements were advanced to five levels.  While participants were taking the tests, hints and clues about how many levels of the items they face were provided, and post interviews were included as well.  Even though the second results were more close to what the research questions wanted to discover, many limitations, such as the complexity of recursive rules, the completeness of knowledge acquirement, and the relationships between examples and recursive learning were revealed in the end of the research.

My Critique

 

        After reading this research, there are pros and cons that I am going to illustrate in the below.

        Speaking of merits, I think, first of all, its introduction gives a very clear ideas about the aim of this study, the abundance of literature reviews, the idea of connection between artificial grammar task and recursive rules, the hypotheses, and the two-times experiments.  In other words, the introduction of this research almost includes everything of the whole research, except tests results, offering an integral previews.  For another merit, preparation before experiments are adequate, and the processes of experiments are explained thoroughly and evidently.  Also, two-times of experiments are considered as the author's intention or determination toward finding the proofs that recursion can be learned by AGL tasks.  Still another, testing results and discussions for experiments are pointed out not only with accurate statistics but also with insight explanation in the text level.  In the end, limitations and suggestions for further studies are presented in the end of the general discussion.

        However, the biggest problem of this research is the two-times processes of its experiments conducting.  According to the title of this research and its introduction, the purpose is to make participants learn recursive rules in AGL tasks under "IMPLICIT" learning.  To my understanding, implicit learning is a little bit similar to inductive learning that is to generate or to learn certain rules from many examples with that certain features.  Then, in the two-times experiments, the participants are shown exemplars on the screen in the first place.  And, they are told to answer questions due to what they have seen previously rather than provide examples as references for them while answering.  In the view of this, I have my doubt on the necessity of second experiment conducting because by memorization, recursive rules can be learned for sure, and the only thing to concern is its time taking; in other words, the levels of repetition and reinforcement even if the researcher found different participants and did in a parallel way.  Moreover, if artificial grammar learning model can be applied to real natural language learning uses is still another central issue to solve.  Other flows, may be try to distinguish the literature reviews from the introduction to make the whole part more pleasant, and move the acknowledgment to the very beginning of the research would be better.

        In conclusion, the researcher's spirits toward study is what I really appreciate.  I think no matter what the results would be, thoroughly preparations are needed in any cases. 

Summary and Critique Studying teacher cognition in second language grammar teaching S. Borg (1999)

Documentation:

Borg, S., (1999, September ). Studying teacher cognition in second language grammar teaching, Elsevier Science Ltd, 27, 19-31.

Summary

        For many years, the issue of teaching grammar has been researched; however, none of those works have precisely discussed the cognition under teachers' instructions.  Therefore, in the beginning of this article, several discussions about teachers' cognition toward grammar teaching are overviewed, which aims at revealing the inadequate research in the past two decades, which truly discovers that most of researchers put many attentions on the acquisition of students' grammatical knowledge, instructional contexts of comparing different strategies of students, and description on natural grammar teaching environment, and which all of those turn to be inconclusive.  Then, by introducing a new perspective of research of both descriptive and interpretive in scope on grammar teaching, the author, after interviewing his co-workers, clearly shows that grammar teaching involves in diverse-faceted decision making processes.  In other words, grammar teaching is often seen as the compromises of confliction based on teachers' cognitions, including language usages, learning instructions, learning backgrounds, learners' levels, and  the teacher, himself or herself.  Besides, three especially influential factors are also aroused, which are teachers' language education, teachers' schooling education, and teachers' classroom experience, illustrating that the underlying of cognition of formal instruction are gathered by crucial educational and professional experiences in teachers' daily lives.  In short, research in this writing are findings of evaluation of teacher cognition and practices in formal instruction, showing the importance for teachers to reflect processes they conduct in teaching in order to improve their teaching gradually.  In the end, even though the lack of doubtless knowledge of effective grammar teaching and learning makes the evaluation of cognition obscured, this insight research posts a future possibilities of further studies.

My Critique

        After reading this research, there are several merits, which could be judged form its introduction, methodology, and discussion, and which is worth of learning.  First of all, the author gives a clear explanation of why he wants to conduct this research in the introduction paragraph.  By adding guided questions in the beginning, readers would be able to know what the research is going to discuss in the following section.  In addition to his well-composing of his questionable points or parts, presenting an obvious outlook, and making readers better understand what the author is trying to explore through this research.

        Second, although the author doesn't exactly arrange the methodology into a single section for enhancing the reading quality, it is still not difficult to figure out that the whole research lies on observation literatures and interviewing his co-workers, which the author believes composing this way would be better than showing data in one aspects only.  Reviewing amount of literatures makes this study be successful because this not only examines the overall history of research of grammar teaching but also posts debatable perspectives toward those findings as well.  Besides, because of lacking complete discussions of teachers' cognition in teaching grammar, it is good to see that the author gather them together in this research to easily compare and contrast.  Even more, the completeness of exploring literatures extends a evolution of grammar teaching research though none of them has a closer analysis.  And, beside observation from literatures, the author also provides interviewing information of his colleagues to support that study on teacher cognition in formal instruction had better be both descriptive and interpretive, which breaks the obstacles of focusing on one aspect in the past, and stay coherence to what the author has said in its introduction, aiming to further discover the core cognition of teachers' teaching processes.

        Third, discussions that appear in each section carry on ideas of previous issues and open for the following discussion as well.  Besides, discussions are not set in the end of the research, which readers could make connections between literatures and discussions easily rather than turning pages to find out again.  The insight argument of literatures is no longer a linear way of presenting ideas but from a various aspect that matches the idea what the author has said that cognition of teaching grammar is not a monolithic phenomenon. 

        In conclusion, this research has provided many different aspects in the field of teaching grammar research.  Basically, it is a well-organized writing or project.  And, it is really impressive that the author indeed gather all the related study together and rearrange them into a inclusive research.  Yet, the insufficient of unquestionable knowledge for deciding teachers' cognition from right to wrong reveals a sense of pity.  At last, the suggestions of topics of advanced research given by the author encourages other-alike researchers to carry out, which is quite good to end this research in an aspect of hoping, expecting, or believing in the future progresses.

Cities or Countryside

In this modern society, people can choose to live either in the city or in the countryside.  Each of them has pros and cons.  As far as I am concerned, I prefer living in the city for its abundant supplies, high quality of living style and international perspectives.

 

        First of all, I would like to live in the city because it can provide abundant supplies.  No matter they are foods, clothes or anything I can imagine, I can buy them in many places with different styles.  With this convenience, I could find the finest things in an ideal price through comparing.  Besides, I will never feel dull to go out since there are many places I can visit.  For example, if I want to go shopping, from department stores to small shops are all I could choose.  In addition, five major chains convenience stores are accounted for over ninety-five percent of the market in the city, which means they are everywhere.  This way, even if I come out for necessities in the midnight, I still could easily find them in the convenience store.  Then, when talking of education conditions, city government, for sure, will be able to offer much more not only teaching materials but also latest teaching techniques for me to apply.

 

        Second, the high quality of living style in the city is all I want to enjoy.  The government and the police have put many much efforts managing the city's order and maintaining the city's operation.  Therefore, both the city's functions and systems are complete enough that I could have immediate and efficient services once I need assistance. In other words, the infrastructure is blameless.  Also, the sanitation consideration is another important factor for choosing to live in the city, because the government will regularly hire city cleaners to sweep roads and streets and to spray medicine to kill insects.  Even better, the entertainment in the city never fails to my expectation.  Whenever there are some big activities, such as pop stars concerts or celebrations of the New Year, they are all held in the city.  So, I can easily join them without looking at the map or stuffing in the traffic jam.

 

        Third, living in the city, I will be able to catch up with trends.  In this competitive society, to know what's happening around the world is very essential.  Besides, all kinds of newly equipments and facilities will be used firstly by the city people, such as medical equipments.  Moreover, in the city, I would have the opportunity to experience and see so many international brands and enterprises stand a place only to survive, knowing that how competitive it is in this world.  More important, under the cultivation of city's passion, I would be more courageous when facing new things in the outside world since I might have experienced.

 

        In conclusion, living in the city can enjoy its abundant supplies, well-constructed infrastructure, and develop my horizons toward the whole world.  And, no matter how much supports help I need, the well-trained staffs will provide their helps as good as they could.  In the end, I am substantially happy living in the city.


 

My Personal Tips of Learning English

English has already become a necessary skill for people who want to get a well-paid career in today’s society. And, the learning of English may vary from different individuals. As for me, there are only two key points to learn English well.




The very key point is to make the best usage of a material I get. For instance, I used to buy grammar books that have key notes in the front and exercises in the end of every chapter, and that were required by teachers. Then, I don’t really need to buy another one for my own sake. And, I listened and took notes in the classes, which it is recognized as the first time studying. Next, I got a notebook to summarize all the key points from books seen as the second studying. Then, I did exercises and corrected them seen as the third studying. Finally, I took notes of those wrong question items into the notebook taken as the forth studying. With these processes, I am sure that I learn well by only buying one book, and I didn’t spend unnecessary money on cram schools. Besides, with this spirit, I could apply into any other aspects of English learning. Take practicing listening for an example, I would buy movies and watch them. By using the same skill, I will watch one with one’s Chinese subtitle for the first time. The second time I will change the subtitle into English version. Then, for the third time learning, I close the subtitle function, and just try to listen to what one is about. Finally, for the last time, I will open my mouth and speak the lines of every character in the movie, which I may practice my speaking, too.



The Second key point is, without any doubt, to put as many efforts as I think I need to. Even though there are effective ways for learning, I would not be able to get the knowledge if I didn’t do it. I know that there many companies which sell learning kits, highlighting on learning without efforts. And, many parents just buy them as many as possible no matter how much do they cost. Speaking frankly, I don’t think those parents really know the problems of their children. Could laziness be interpreted as not knowing how to learn? I think those parents should ask this question to themselves. And, I believe studying is the least hard-working thing when comparing to other jobs. If anyone thinks it is hard to study; then, he or she should tell their parents that don’t buy those learning kits for wasting money.



To sum up, learning strategies may differ within people, but the way to learn well may not vary a lot since via right and efficient learning skills and hardworking, I believe the word “impossible” should be delete in learning environment.

Advantages of Using Wikispaces

Obviously, people are seeking more convenient and efficient ways in their lives as technology grows. When looking into past, people might feel cool if they could search information on-line, but that is going to be ordinary now because with the improvement of Web 2.0, people can not only read the information but take a part in helping revise it. Take wikispaces for an example, there will be at least three huge benefits that simple user can get.




First of all, it costs nothing if people want to register for accounts. Then, they can do whatever they want just like having a personal website. Second of all, people could send requests to ask friends to join their wikis. With that action, friends can manage their wikis and help revise others as well. Third, wikispcaces provides functions to upload things people would like to such as, files, YouTube videos, slideshow and Prezi. Simply by clicking, people can upload everything rather than study codes so as to understand how to construct WebPages.



Besides, with only one account, people can create as many wikispaces as they want, which suits the spirit of being simple, fast and costless. And what’s more, wikispaces doesn’t really limit users’ actions; in other words, it can be made into any kinds of useful or creative website. For example, teachers could use it for a place to store their teaching materials; while students may like to show more about themselves.



In short, wikispaces indeed has a lot of advantages, which makes whole world move into a new era. People no longer look for information, but could interact with other people through screens, which really impress me. Surely, only by using it could people fully discover and know its merits.

The Review and Reflection of the Movie “The Lady”

Whenever there is a hero or a leader, I can’t help but to wonder that are those their fates or just coincidences? In the movie “The Lady”, a sense of divineness reveals abundantly by the acting of Michelle Yeoh staring as Aung San Suu Kyi.

In the beginning of the movie, Aung San Suu Kyi’s father got murdered due to his peaceful and democratic stance. Coming back from UK, she was asked to lead a group. Is it her fate or coincidence? Everything happened so fast that she couldn’t even realize that her decision will make her life change for good. And what’s more, the following up strikes, fights, restrained and detained are all far unlike her eased life before.

In Burma, a warlord dominated the country for so long with unjust and cold-blooded means. As soon as he knew that she will lead the democratic group, a series of predictable actions that aim to stop her are going to be extremely fearsome and horrific. Every time she tried so hard to be steady, the man on the horseback pressed her more. However, maybe those pressures are reasons why she could stand still when facing those incredible challenges. Speaking of the main actress in “The Lady”, Michelle Yeoh surprisingly changed from an action movie star into a mild lady with great dignity, showing her skills are improved a great huge.

Her husband, on the other hand, was a history professor, and his supports for her was tremendous, which can be seen from the several visits with their two sons and apply for a Nobel Prize so as to free his wife. Sadly, under many years efforts, not only the ignorance of the warlord but also her husband’s suffering from cancer did beat her strong heart once again. While she was thinking about back for a visit, she chose to stay for everyone had devoted so much, and once she went back, she would never be allowed to come again. This decision, without doubts, is crucial. And, bursting into tears when knowing her husband’s fatality was really sorrowful and depressed either to her or us in the movie theater. Then, eventually, she was freed and her will, which never changes and gets moved, now is going to continue in Burma.

Overall the whole film, I have to admit that the director didn’t make good use of cutting and editing the film to make the story look more fluently. However, every different music appears in every different scenes among different characters, which strengthens the spirit of those characters, and even more, I believe it is the music that fills lives into not only characters but also the story itself, and I could even see the pure soul of “the lady” the minute the music was played. Besides, the successful transformation of an action actress to a leader of a country is another key point to make this movie be touching deeply in audience’s hearts. To conclude, the movie focuses on the process and courage of the lady, leading her people to democracy even though the movie tends to direct it in a more plain, or I should say too much meaningless repetitions way. It is a wonderful movie still. I mean merely by watching Michelle Yeoh’s magnificent performance, I feel that she is “The Lady”.

Technology-Enhanced Language Learning

Amazingly, technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) has been a fashion. Accompanying with this teaching approach, there are so many new computer skills that I should be equipped with and apply them into my teaching, such as, wiki spaces, interaction white board, blogger, and RSS.


To begin with, Web 2.0 is the most important concept that linked the rest of things. In the past, we search information on the websites which are created by a few of people, and the information there are not changeable. So the connection between people and information goes only one way; in other words, people find information which is there already. To be frankly, it feels cold in that way since there is no interaction. Then, after the first generation, it comes to the era of the second generation, also called Web 2.0. It makes the Internet into huge communities through several spaces, which people have already used them, like Wikipedia. This way, everyone could contribute to the spaces, which subsequently show the interactions between people. What’s more, the connection goes both ways, which would be more convenient, efficient and much easier. Take wiki spaces for an example, simply get a free account of it, then I can manage it as my own webpage, and what’s awesome is that all of my friends can join me just by clicking, making them a part of the wiki spaces. With this wiki spaces, I can even have discussions and even plan for a trip. Take RSS feed for another example, before web2.0, people open so many web pages to read things they want. Now, with RSS feed, people will read what they want within one page, and all they have to do is to add their favorite pages through RSS.


When speaking of applying into language teaching, I believe it would definitely be an impact on ways of teaching now. Since today, Learning has been about taking notes and taking tests. However, with the appearance of TELL, students could have opportunities to learn by doing them directly, which might subconsciously evoke their intrinsic motivation or reinforce their knowledge into long term memory.


In brief, TELL will become more and more common after a few years because technology is still making progresses. And, maybe, students will go to school by their avatars. Who knows! Therefore, I think it is always good to learn new things so as to keep myself spinning as the earth never stops.

About CALL course

CALL, standing for Computer-Assisted Language Learning is getting popular recently with the huge progress of technology. And, many related concepts or ideas just pop out without noticing, such as web 2.0. As a teacher, I think I need to catch up with this trend; otherwise, I will be eliminated in this high competitive society.


In this course, I am glad that I will have chances to learn many useful computer skills, such as blog, wiki spaces and video stuffs. Besides, I will also learn how to perfectly applied those skills into real teaching environment, which I believe it is the ultimate goal; that is, to teach. What’s more, under professor’s instruction, I am going to gain valuable knowledge of many new-popped out concepts or ideas, and even better, I will have my own teaching materials websites, making me so excited that I listen to lectures attentively in the class. And, all of those class activities are going to be done by myself, which I think it is always better for students to learn things by actually doing them rather than listening to lessons or having tests.


In short, CALL teaching is what takes people’s daily lives by a storm now and what will change the way we have our educations in the future. With no doubt, I need to learn it, and maybe because I have such kind of knowledge background, I will possibly invent an on-line game to teach English.