After years of research, neuroscientists have discovered a new pathway in the human brain that processes the sounds of language. The findings, reported last month in the journal Cell, suggest that auditory and speech processing occur in parallel, contradicting a long-held theory that the brain processes acoustic information then transforms it into linguistic information. Sounds…
What motivates students to study languages? How do our students prefer to learn languages? Does school actually “get in the way” of language learning? To explore the learner’s perspective on the current state of high school language learning, the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL) organized a diverse group of students from across…
UT Austin statisticians Giorgio Paulon and Abhra Sarkar have been awarded the prestigious Mitchell Prize for their paper on tone learning in adults. The Mitchell Prize, jointly sponsored by the American Statistical Association, the International Society for Bayesian Analysis, and the Mitchell Prize Founders’ Committee, is awarded annually to the author(s) of an outstanding paper…
Contrary to one of the most-cited studies in the field, a new research paper from University of Kansas (KU) linguists shows that even as beginners, adults can quickly begin mentally processing sentence structures in a second language like a native speaker. “We were inspired by a study that is cited in our article as Osterhout…
A first-of-its kind study in U.S.-born children from Spanish-speaking families has found that minority language exposure does not threaten the acquisition of English by children in the U.S. and that there is no trade-off between English and Spanish. Rather, children reliably acquire English, and their total language knowledge is greater in that they also acquire…
New research shows that attending a Boston public preschool led to positive long-term impacts on educational attainment as attendees were more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college. The short-term effect of preschool on test scores was minimal, but there was a substantial impact on student behavior. Effects were larger for boys…
One-third of the nearly 23 million preschool-age children in the U.S. live with a parent who speaks a language other than English. Despite the size of this population and its distinct linguistic assets and learning support needs, nearly all states lack any standardized policies for systematically identifying these children. Yet doing so would provide the…
The recent shootings of Asian Americans and whether these will be considered hate crimes, tornadoes ravaging the Southwest and elsewhere, and fears of uncertain variants of the COVID-19 pandemic dominated the news during the writing of this piece. Crises, unfortunately, are not new to us. As educators, along with feeling deeply troubled by these, we…
A new study conducted by researchers at Georgia State University and Istanbul Bilgi University suggests that twins undergo language acquisition at a slightly different rate from their single-birth counterparts. The team of psychologists and linguists found that twins tend to use fewer physical gestures and lag behind single children in terms of language development, findings…
A new study conducted by researchers at Georgia State University and Istanbul Bilgi University suggests that twins undergo language acquisition at a slightly different rate from their single-birth counterparts. The team of psychologists and linguists found that twins tend to use fewer physical gestures and lag behind single children in terms of language development, findings…