UNews - Dr. Fangfang Li

Comparing approaches to learning a second language

caroline.zentner — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 20:46:48 +0000

Recent waves of immigration have led to a burgeoning bilingual population in Canada and second-language programs offered by the public education system have flourished in response.

The ability to speak a second language at a level that approaches native-like proficiency can positively affect academic and career success. However, graduates of second-language programs often produce speech errors that impair how well they are understood and sometimes lead to stereotypical judgments of their capability.

Now, thanks to $150,000 in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Dr. Fangfang Li, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, will be able to examine the factors that might influence speech errors. Li hopes to better understand the origins of such speech errors after she found some rather puzzling results from research she conducted with elementary-aged children in local French Immersion programs.

“In my past research, I looked at students in Grades 1, 3 and 5. At the time, we thought students in the higher grades should make fewer speech errors than students in lower grades but that’s not the case,” says Li. “We found that, if students make pronunciation errors when they are in Grade 1, it’s going to persist in Grade 5. They’re not getting substantial improvement over time.”

As Li pondered possible reasons for the finding, she hypothesized that local children in French Immersion programs continued to make the same speech errors because they most likely have an Anglophone background and are learning a second language that isn’t the dominant language in the community. These factors limit opportunities to speak French outside the classroom.

Li and fellow researchers from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Montreal have designed a further study to test out that hypothesis. Working with a colleague from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Montreal, one part of the study will have native French speakers evaluate students’ speech production and identify areas that need improvement. This information can then be used by teachers to design better educational materials.

“Once we obtain the normative data, we can then use it as a reference to design standard tests,” says Li.

In her previous study, Li spoke with school administrators who indicated a concern that no standard testing is available for students who are native speakers of English who acquire a second language such as French.

Another part of the study, done in collaboration with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta, will look at a bilingual Mandarin Chinese and English program in Edmonton where the curriculum is divided equally between English and Mandarin.

“The student body is also divided so that native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and native speakers of English are mixed in the same classroom,” says Li. “That’s the kind of opportunity that French Immersion students, say in Lethbridge, don’t have. They don’t have the opportunity to talk to native speaking peers on a daily basis.”

Li expects that English students who have more opportunities to talk with native Mandarin-speaking peers and teachers will produce more accurate Mandarin speech as they move into the higher grades.

“If the Mandarin-English bilingual program proves to be better, I think it may be time to think about whether we can combine students from Anglophone backgrounds and Francophone backgrounds in the same school so they can learn from each other,” says Li.

Four research projects boosted by CREDO funding

caroline.zentner — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 17:29:55 +0000

The latest round of funding through the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Community of Research Excellence Development Opportunities (CREDO) program will provide $25,000 to each of four diverse research projects.

They include a local oral history project, a study into green bonds and their effect on the stock market, research into how children’s gender identity influences the way they produce sounds, and ways that countries with minority official languages can improve proficiency through education and training policies.

“The CREDO awards are the most generous and prestigious internal awards the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ offers,” says Dr. Claudia Malacrida, associate vice-president research. “Designed to support social science, humanities, arts, management and social health researchers, these funds provide seed money so our researchers in those disciplines can go on to seek more aggressive external funding. As a result, we can expect to hear much more about these exciting projects as they build momentum over the coming years.”

Dr. Carly Adams (Kinesiology)

Dr. Carly Adams

Dr. Carly Adams, a U of L kinesiology and physical education professor and member of the Centre for Oral History and Tradition (COHT), is collaborating with Dr. Darren Aoki of Plymouth ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in the United Kingdom and U of L adjunct associate professor, on a community-based oral history project to rescue the stories of Nikkei, Canadians of Japanese descent, between the 1950s and the 1970s. The researchers want to record people’s recollections of everyday life at a time when Nikkei communities, after suffering persecution during the Second World War, were being built again.

“I am delighted to be working with Dr. Aoki on this timely project. To carry out this historical study of this moment in southern Alberta’s past, we are partnering with COHT, the Nikkei Cultural Society of Lethbridge and Area, the Nikka Yuko Japanese-Canadian Friendship Gardens, and the Galt Museum and Archives. We hope to learn more about work, school, leisure, home and Nikkei identity,” says Adams.

Dr. Vishaal Baulkaran (Management)

Dr. Vishaal Baulkaran

A relatively new option for investing is green bonds, issued to finance capital projects that are environmentally sustainable. Dr. Vishaal Baulkaran, a management professor, will examine the need for and usefulness of this type of financing instrument in fighting climate change from a capital market point of view. As environmental and sustainable projects gain importance for both individual and institutional investors, Baulkaran wants to examine if issuing green bonds creates value for shareholders by measuring the reaction of the stock market.

“Capital markets and private financing will play an increasingly important role in fighting climate change,” says Baulkaran. “This project will examine one type of financial instrument available to market participants with the goal of alleviating the impact of climate change.”

Dr. Fangfang Li (Psychology)

Dr. Fangfang Li

Previous research has shown that a child’s gender identity can mediate a gender-specific way of producing the sound ‘s.’ Dr. Fangfang Li, a speech scientist and U of L professor, wants to know whether gender identity affects the development of other sounds to a similar degree, both in English and other languages. Working with Dr. Paul Vasey, a U of L sex researcher, their research will examine an established set of data on 160 children, including speech recordings in English and Mandarin Chinese.

“Boys and girls talk differently. The proposed research will allow us to understand how children learn to talk in a socially appropriate way,” says Li.

Dr. Alain Takam (Modern Languages)

Dr. Alain Takam

Dr. Alain Takam, a professor in the Modern Languages department, wants to investigate ways of raising proficiency in minority official languages. Both Canada and Cameroon have French and English as official languages and Takam will examine how education and training policies can increase mastery in a minority official language. Takam intends to compare the policy and planning frameworks around minority official languages in both countries and stakeholders’ perceptions and attitudes about language courses in general and minority official languages in particular, especially in technical training programs.

“This research will benefit students, teachers, parents and language planners,” says Takam. “Our results will help inform policy about the special demands and challenges of language acquisition in the education system and in technical training. Further, our results will eventually help facilitate trades and technical workers to be more mobile in a bilingual economy.”

CREDO was established at the U of L in 2008 to provide funding to launch bold and exciting new projects that enhance research excellence at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. The program helps support faculty as they build a research or artistic profile that helps them gain a competitive edge in national competitions or other external funding opportunities and provides skills and training opportunities for students. Since 2008, the U of L has bestowed more than $1 million which has led CREDO researchers to awards of more than $1.6 million in Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funding.

The application deadline for the next round of CREDO funding is Nov. 28. Funding is valued at $25,000 over two years. More information is available on the Research & Innovation Services website.

Inaugural conference focuses on how children learn language

caroline.zentner — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 17:43:57 +0000

From children learning English as a second language to the effects of electronics on the developing brain, the first annual Child Language Acquisition Research in Alberta (CLARA) Conference promises to be of interest to researchers, clinicians, teachers and parents alike.

“We are excited to be hosting this inaugural conference at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge,” says Dr. Fangfang Li, a U of L psychology professor with expertise in child speech development. “This conference will bring together well-known researchers in the field of child language acquisition who are eager to share their knowledge with community members.”

The conference, which runs from Thursday to Saturday, has several sessions that are open to the public. Anyone interested is welcome to attend the keynote address Thursday evening (PE250, 7 p.m.) by Dr. Ellen Bialystok, a professor at York ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. Her research examines the effect of experience, such as bilingualism, on cognitive processes across the lifespan.

The public may also be interested in the lightning talks of five minutes each on Friday evening (Andy’s Place, AH100, 6 to 8 p.m.). The schedule of topics includes how babies begin to learn words, how to improve children’s learning experiences in French Immersion, a new online resource for Blackfoot teachers, and whether younger is always better for language acquisition. A full conference schedule can be found online.

The CLARA network of Alberta researchers in the field of child language acquisition was formed by Dr. Elena Nicoladis from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. The conference will enhance existing research in the field of child language acquisition in Alberta and promote research exchange and collaboration on a national and international scale. The conference is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the U of L, the Women Scholars Speaker Series and the Hotchkiss Speaker fund.

New conference to build bridges between academia and the public

caroline.zentner — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:02:10 +0000

People often think young children learn a second language much easier than older children or adults but much of the research into second language learning doesn’t necessarily support this idea in a school setting.

Popular wisdom holds that, in contrast to adults, immigrant children in a host society learn a second language quickly and effortlessly. However, new research demonstrates that English language learners take years to approach monolingual language abilities and with varying outcomes.

Dr. Fangfang Li, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge psychology professor with expertise in linguistics, together with her colleagues, Drs. Robbin Gibb, Claudia Gonzalez, Inge Genee and Noëlla Piquette, want to ensure the public has access to correct information about child language learning because language is central to children’s daily functioning.

Many students in today’s classrooms need to learn English as a second language or are in second language immersion programs and their success depends on their ability to learn the second language. Research in child language acquisition is a multi-disciplinary affair that draws on evidence from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience and education.

“Partly because of this inherent intricacy, the area of child language acquisition is frequently filled with myths and misconceptions,” says Li. “Further confusion is generated by commercial advertisements or popular videos prevalent in mass media.”

Li wants to build bridges between the various academic disciplines involved in child language acquisition research and the public through a conference that will be the first of its kind in Alberta. She has succeeded in obtaining a Connection Grant of more than $28,000 through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to make the conference a reality.

“We aim to orient research towards community needs, update the public with current research findings and address common misconceptions in the community,” she says. “These conversations are also timely in light of the booming demand of second language education for children who are immigrants, refugees, indigenous, and second language immersion or bilingual program students.”

Li says the first annual Alberta Conference on Child Language Acquisition Research, taking place from Nov. 24 to 26 at the U of L, will offer keynote addresses, workshops, a poster session and roundtable talks. The conference is designed to enhance the existing research network in Alberta in the area of child language acquisition and to foster further research exchanges and collaboration on a national and international level. The conference will appeal to parents, teachers, policy makers, academic experts and community members. The conference is also expected to become an annual event alternating between the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary and the U of L.

“Our long-term goal is to retain the two-way communication channel between academia and the community to help ensure decisions and policies are based on the best scientific evidence available,” says Li.

UNews - Dr. Fangfang Li

Comparing approaches to learning a second language

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Inaugural conference focuses on how children learn language

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