Browsing by Author "Figueiredo, Sandra"
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- Assessment effectiveness for second language learners : Predictors, reliability and discriminant profilesPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos Fernandes daThe main concerns that enhance the empirical studies in assessment of second language learners is to identify the prevalence of second language deficits, the validity of a new test, and to determine specificities and predictors of speakers’ profiles, among other variables (age, home language formal instruction, exposure to second language, first years of schooling, nationality, parent’s profiles). Hypotheses: different language speakers will perform differently in specific tasks in portuguese language, so age, home language, and first language instruction would be main predictors? Strong discriminant achievements could be identified in percentiles 25 and 75? In this post-doctoral research the main goal is to assess new immigrant students from several Portuguese schools to determine cognitive and linguistic profiles. Through new diagnostic test in second language area will be analyzed distinct verbal behaviors and determined cut-offs. Additionally will be evaluated the difficulty and reliability of each task. Method: the instrument was developed with 15 tasks based on international assessment sources such Alberta, TOEFL, DELNA and WMLSR. There is no knowledge of other validated tools to test portuguese immigrant students. Approximately 110 individuals were assessed, with ages between 7 and 17 years old, speakers of romance, indo-aryan, afro-asiatic, slavic, and mandarin languages, and at this phase we are conducting inferential tests (SPSS) to measure profiles and reliability coefficients. The collection of sample is still ongoing. Findings: in one hand, this paper reports preliminary data gathered from a large-scale district study that is examining language proficiency and cognitive performance of immigrants in Portuguese schools. Different language speakers and age groups, with different amounts of instruction in home language, from basic and high schools, will be analyzed regarding lowest and highest performances in picture-naming (1) and semantic relations tasks (2), particularly focusing the vocabulary decoding skills. Findings demonstrate reliable tasks and different student’s profiles, being crucial over proficiency levels identification. In the other hand, prior findings in this area will be expected to be confirmed such as the influence of age and mother tongue. Part of our hypotheses will be rejected considering the youngest learner’s low scores and the creoles language speakers with deficits in specific vocabulary domain. Particular assumptions of literature in this area will be discussed regarding divergent data observed and new insights. Older learners, with instruction in first language, speakers of slavic, mandarin and romance languages presented more positive results and expected greater cognitive profile in second language specific traits. But, other variables should be considered with further examination and with the conclusion of the empirical study. Also implications of results and test feasibility will be discussed for general educational policies and assessment in second language field.
- Assessment effectiveness for second language learners: predictors, reliability and discriminant profilesPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos FernandesThe main concerns that enhance the empirical studies in assessment of second language learners is to identify the prevalence of second language deficits, the validity of a new test, and to determine specificities and predictors of speakers’ profiles, among other variables (age, home language formal instruction, exposure to second language, first years of schooling, nationality, parent’s profiles). Hypotheses: different language speakers will perform differently in specific tasks in portuguese language, so age, home language, and first language instruction would be main predictors? Strong discriminant achievements could be identified in percentiles 25 and 75? In this post-doctoral research the main goal is to assess new immigrant students from several Portuguese schools to determine cognitive and linguistic profiles. Through new diagnostic test in second language area will be analyzed distinct verbal behaviors and determined cut-offs. Additionally will be evaluated the difficulty and reliability of each task. Method: the instrument was developed with 15 tasks based on international assessment sources such Alberta, TOEFL, DELNA and WMLSR. There is no knowledge of other validated tools to test portuguese immigrant students. Approximately 110 individuals were assessed, with ages between 7 and 17 years old, speakers of romance, indo-aryan, afro-asiatic, slavic, and mandarin languages, and at this phase we are conducting inferential tests (SPSS) to measure profiles and reliability coefficients. The collection of sample is still ongoing. Findings: in one hand, this paper reports preliminary data gathered from a large-scale district study that is examining language proficiency and cognitive performance of immigrants in Portuguese schools. Different language speakers and age groups, with different amounts of instruction in home language, from basic and high schools, will be analyzed regarding lowest and highest performances in picture-naming (1) and semantic relations tasks (2), particularly focusing the vocabulary decoding skills. Findings demonstrate reliable tasks and different student’s profiles, being crucial over proficiency levels identification. In the other hand, prior findings in this area will be expected to be confirmed such as the influence of age and mother tongue. Part of our hypotheses will be rejected considering the youngest learner’s low scores and the creoles language speakers with deficits in specific vocabulary domain. Particular assumptions of literature in this area will be discussed regarding divergent data observed and new insights. Older learners, with instruction in first language, speakers of slavic, mandarin and romance languages presented more positive results and expected greater cognitive profile in second language specific traits. But, other variables should be considered with further examination and with the conclusion of the empirical study. Also implications of results and test feasibility will be discussed for general educational policies and assessment in second language field.
- Avaliação diagnóstica em contextos migrantes : medidas e formatos de instrumentos nas escolas portuguesasPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos FernandesA investigação na área de língua segunda determinou a necessidade de procedimentos de medição sobre a proficiência e competência. Na primeira fase deste projeto científico, pretende-se aplicar e validar provas selecionadas do corpus de testes internacionais, em alunos locutores de Português Língua não Materna do 1.º, 2.º e 3.º Ciclos, de Lisboa e Aveiro. As provas adaptadas apresentam uma proposta alternativa e complementar aos dispositivos do Ministério da Educação, focando na emergência de instrumentos validados. Algumas provas serão discutidas no sentido da complexidade e singularidade da estrutura de diagnóstico em contexto de avaliação de alunos com experiência migratória.
- Building instruments to understand minds and cognition in european schoolsPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, MThis study will examine the validity and prevalence of specific language tasks to differentiate 108 second language (L2) learners, considering two main factors: the socioeconomic background and the instruction in first language (L1). All the tasks were developed for the first levels of proficiency (A2-B1, according to European benchmarks), and applied to a large sample of diverse Portuguese students (immigrants with origin in several continents). Four tasks administered are incorporated in a 15-test diagnostic. The tasks were administered between 2013 and 2014, in Lisbon schools, and were disposed on paper and on a computer screen one at a time. Data will be presented regarding the following items: verbal analogies, recall task, and cognates. Hypothesis 1: home environment has impact for tasks performance in L2, attending to employment situation and families’ economic stability identified through the professional situation of two-parent families and attending to their job skills (graduate and nongraduate). Hypothesis 2: depending on the L1 continued instruction, immigrant students have different cognitive and linguistic output. The results confirmed the hypothesis that students from low-income immigrant families experienced worst performance in general tasks, and individuals with L1 support were good performers compared to other with no home language continued instruction. Implications will be discussed considering that students from limited socioeconomic families, and the additional factor of no L1 continued instruction, have more failure at school and they experience more difficulty to adjust to daily social activities.
- Cognitive systems evolution: Immigrant last generations and cognitive mapping changingPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos Fernandes daThere is little evidence on the correlation between immigration effects and the evolution of the mind and cognition, especially concerning children. Last generations of young immigrants are expected to experience adaptive strategies to respond to the school environment in order to achieve success. Specifically concerning the new language learning in the diversity of the host countries (plus the diversity of the countries of origin and home languages/cultures), it should be analyzed how the human cognitive aptitude (language aptitude and problem solving) is being reorganized in terms of thought, concepts and cultural orientations previously developed in a certain native culture. The native culture (aspects of the nationality and of the home language) is mentally associated to concepts and generates the self-regulation which implies consciousness in a home culture as a reference. How does it works for new immigrants that were separated (including cases of forced immigration) from their unique cognitive reference? Different cognitive achievements and language deficits would be constrained in their natural development and differences in academic achievement are expected. This lead to implications for the biological hypothesis of critical period concerning the new waves of immigration and ethnic differentiation in current generations. Age would be considered along with other unexpected variables such as nationality. The present study examines populations’ differences – ethnic and age – on specific language and cognitive tasks considering immigrant students in Portuguese schools (M=13 years old; SD= 2,7) with origin in different world areas: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, African countries, Latin America, Asia (Indian Asia) and China and with different home languages and cultures. Data showed a variability of groups’ achievements in cognates, text recall, lexical recall and dichotic listening tasks. Disparities among the minorities will be discussed considering educational and ethological implications. Population evolutionary characteristics might be concluded from those disparities.
- Desenvolvimento curricular e didáticaPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Silva, Carlos Fernandes da; Martins, Margarida AlvesO “comportamento verbal” concretiza-se porque, por um lado, existe um sistema de princípios e condições que por si só são considerados os elementos inerentes a todas as línguas naturais, determinados pela necessidade biológica, mas, por outro lado, esses elementos integram uma relação dinâmica de eventos que constituem o contexto do sujeito. Os eventos não se restringem às estruturas cerebrais (a perspetiva mentalista), mas também a aspetos externos e que se apresentam como conjunto de estímulos a ser discriminado- meio ambiente (a perspetiva funcional). Após uma breve revisão teórica de conceitos e de processos de descodificação fonética, serão apresentados resultados de alunos portugueses imigrantes com idades compreendidas entre os 8 e os 30 anos de idade, decorrentes da aplicação da bateria de testes de descodificação fonética (provas de identificação de pares mínimos, segmentação, reconstrução fonémica, identificação sintática, audição dicótica). A discussão foca especificamente o desempenho de sujeitos aprendentes de Português Língua Segunda relativamente aos testes de segmentação de palavras (soletração) e de identificação de pares mínimos. Este modelo de engenharia didática, na área específica da didática das línguas segundas, assume-se com uma medida importante para monitorizar a evolução e o estado da proficiência e competência geral linguística dos alunos ao longo do ano letivo, a ser conduzido pelos professores.
- Exploring SL Writing and SL Sensitivity during Writing Tasks : poor and advanced writing in a context of second language other than EnglishPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, C.; Simões, C.This study integrates a larger research empirical project that examines second language (SL) learners’ profiles and valid procedures to perform complete and diagnostic assessment in schools. 102 learners of Portuguese as a SL aged 7 and 17 years speakers of distinct home languages were assessed in several linguistic tasks. In this article, we focused on writing performance in the specific task of narrative essay composition. The written outputs were measured using the score in six components adapted from an English SL assessment context (Alberta Education): linguistic vocabulary, grammar, syntax, strategy, socio-linguistic, and discourse. The writing processes and strategies in Portuguese language used by different immigrant students were analysed to determine features and diversity of deficits on authentic texts performed by SL writers. Differentiated performance was based on the diversity of the following variables: grades, previous schooling, home language, instruction in first language, and exposure to Portuguese as Second Language. Indo-Aryan languages speakers showed low writing scores compared to their peers and the type of language and respective cognitive mapping (such as Mandarin and Arabic) was the predictor, not linguistic distance. Home language instruction should also be prominently considered in further research to understand specificities of cognitive academic profile in a Romance languages learning context. Additionally, this study also examined the teachers representations that will be here addressed to understand educational implications of second language teaching in psychological distress of different minorities in schools of specific host countries.
- How teachers' perceptions affect the academic and language assessment of immigrant childrenPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos Fernandes da; Simões, CristinaRecent research evidences inconsistencies in teachers' practice regarding skills assessment of L2 students. Scientific evidence supports that less experienced teachers have lower orientation toward multiple task-tests for non-native students. Research questions: Whether school teachers as having different teaching training and unequal teaching experience with non-native students perceive differently a four-skills scale. Purpose of the study: This study intends to analyse the importance degree between the four skills/tasks: reading, writing, speaking and listening, in the perspective of school teachers. Method: 77 teachers, aged 32-62, with (and without) experience in teaching and adapting materials for immigrant students, divided into six groups according to their scientific domain. Assessment tools included a scale for judgement of four academic tasks adapted from the original “Inventory of Undergraduate and Graduate Level: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening Tasks (Rosenfeld, Leung & Ottman, 2001). Main Findings: 1) different degrees of importance attributed by teachers on tasks that should be included in academic and language test for immigrant students; 2) perceptions of teachers are determined by predictors in this order: scientific domain, experience with multicultural classes and lower prediction from teaching service and age; 3) different results between american and portuguese samples answering the same questionnaire.
- Language testing for minority students in portuguese schools: Teacher’s decision making based in common european frameworkPublication . Figueiredo, Sandra; Martins, Margarida Alves; Silva, Carlos Fernandes daRecent research on cognitive and academic performance assessment of immigrant students evidences inconsistencies in teachers’ practice regarding performance assessment of L2 students. We aim to verify whether students classified by schools as having different proficiency levels in accordance to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR, 2001) perform differently in tests on vocabulary and verbal reasoning. The study included 23 learners of Portuguese as L2 aged 9-18, divided into three groups according to their proficiency level (A1, A2, B1). Assessment tools included four tasks - verbal analogies, semantic associations, picture naming and morphological extraction. Our expectations are that A1 students perform more poorly in all tasks than A2 students and that these perform more poorly than students classified as having a B1 level in Portuguese language. Results show that, on the one hand, there are performance differences among proficiency groups and, on the other hand, there is inconsistency in the expected order of performance differences in the tasks (from the beginner to the most advanced level). Results suggest inconsistencies in teachers’ practice regarding testing of the performance of minority groups with implications in the academic success of the identified students.
- Learning Portuguese as a second languagePublication . Figueiredo, SandraThis volume examines the specific effects that schools have on the performance of immigrant students and linguistic minority groups. Especially in the European context this study fills a gap in examining the effects that schools have on these students’ performance and performance differentiation, taking into account school related factors such as resources and teachers, and the influence of other variables like mother tongue and socioeconomic status. This report on an ongoing research project in Portugal examines state schools within the same district, in the same tests over the same assessment period. The study is based on the following set of relationships: between schools that administer proficiency tests to their non-native students; schools that do not use such tests; and schools with verifiable support programs (including physical and digital materials); and between the effect of the school and the predictive values of the nationality, mother tongue and socioeconomic status variables on the performance of non-native students of Portuguese