The BEST Dataset of Language Proficiency

Bruin, Angela de; Carreiras, Manuel; Duñabeitia, Jon Andoni

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00522

Cited by 99 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…We only included participants with minimum score of 60% in English (80% for Spanish), which is equivalent to a minimum of a B2 level (C1 for Spanish) according to the Common European Framework of reference for languages 26 . Participants also completed a test of productive vocabulary (BEST picture naming task 28 ) and had a minimum score of 40 out of 65 for English (61 out of 65 for Spanish). Participants were asked to rate their English and Spanish levels overall on a 1-to-10 scale as well as their reading skills in that language.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of contextual diversity on incidental vocabulary learning in the native and a foreign language

Frances

Martin

Duñabeitia

2020

Sci Rep

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Vocabulary learning occurs throughout the lifespan, often implicitly. For foreign language learners, this is particularly challenging as they must acquire a large number of new words with little exposure. In the present study, we explore the effects of contextual diversity-namely, the number of texts a word appears in-on native and foreign language word learning. Participants read several texts that had novel pseudowords replacing high-frequency words. The total number of encounters with the novel words was held constant, but they appeared in 1, 2, 4, or 8 texts. In addition, some participants read the texts in Spanish (their native language) and others in English (their foreign language). We found that increasing contextual diversity improved recall and recognition of the word, as well as the ability to match the word with its meaning while keeping comprehension unimpaired. Using a foreign language only affected performance in the matching task, where participants had to quickly identify the meaning of the word. Results are discussed in the greater context of the word learning and foreign language literature as well as their importance as a teaching tool. Vocabulary learning is an essential aspect of language that continues throughout the lifespan. To a large extent, the vocabulary we incorporate comes from incidental learning during reading 1,2 rather than explicit effort. This becomes particularly relevant when learning a new language, where a large amount of vocabulary must be acquired very quickly and partially without supervision. Following this reasoning, several studies have shown that it is possible to learn vocabulary implicitly through reading in our foreign language 3-7. In addition, we know that people incorporate new lexical forms with as little as one exposure in their native language and as little as two exposures in their foreign language 4 , but that learning improves with exposure to multiple instances of the word 8. Implicit word learning in context differs somewhat between one's native and foreign languages. In particular, reading times for new words in our native language decrease significantly after the first exposure-suggesting some level of incorporation of the lexical item-whereas for the foreign language this happens only after two to four exposures 4. This might relate to the fact that it is more difficult to extract the meaning of words from context in a foreign language. This is in part because these skills seem to be affected by knowledge of the language and experience in that particular task 9,10. Although the number of times people encounter a word affects how well they learn and remember it 5,8 , there is not much literature on how spreading these encounters across passages affects learning. One of the ways in which this spread is quantified is through contextual diversity-namely, the number of texts in which a word appears in a database 11,12. This variable can be used to describe the influence of context beyond the mere number of occurrences or the frequency with which we encou...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of contextual diversity on incidental vocabulary learning in the native and a foreign language

Frances

Martin

Duñabeitia

2020

Sci Rep

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“…Spanish-Basque bilinguals had also acquired both languages before the age of 6, and they were also attending a bilingual school. We assessed language proficiency with three different measurements (see Table 1): a subjective scale, in which participants rated their language competence on a scale from 0 to 10; a 20-item adapted version of a picture naming task [21]; the LexTale (a lexical decision task, cf., for the English version [22]; for the Spanish version [23]; and for the Basque version [21]). In addition to measuring proficiency in Spanish, Basque, and Catalan (where relevant), we also made sure that, despite English being a mandatory subject in all Spanish schools, the participants’ English level was relatively low as assessed by the English LexTale (see Table 1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in word learning: bilingualism or linguistic experience?

Borragan

Bruin

Havas³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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20Bilinguals may be better than monolinguals at word learning due to their increased 21 experience with language learning. In addition, bilinguals that have languages that are 22 orthotactically different could be more used to dissimilar orthotactic patterns. The current 23 study examines how bilinguals with languages that are orthotactically similar and dissimilar 24 and monolinguals learn novel words that violate or respect the orthotactic legality of the 25 languages they know and how this learning may be affected by the similarity between the 26 bilinguals' two languages. In Experiment 1, three groups of children were tested: monolinguals, 27Spanish-Basque bilinguals (dissimilar orthotactic languages), and Spanish-Catalan bilinguals 28(similar orthotactic languages). After an initial word learning phase, they were tested in a recall 29 task and a recognition task. Results showed that Spanish-Basque bilingual children performed 30 differently than the other two groups. While Spanish monolinguals and Spanish-Catalan 31 bilinguals recognized illegal words worse than legal words, Spanish-Basque bilinguals showed 32 equal performance in learning illegal and legal patterns. A replication study conducted with 33 two new groups of Spanish-Basque children (one group with high Basque proficiency and one 34 group with a lower proficiency) indicated that the effects were not driven by the proficiency in 35 the second language since a similar performance on legal and illegal patterns was observed in 36 both groups. In Experiment 2, two groups of adults, monolinguals and Spanish-Basque 37 bilinguals, were tested with the same task used in Experiment 1. The effect seen in children 38 seems to be absent in adults. Spanish-Basque bilingual adults showed better overall learning 39 performance than monolinguals, irrespective of the illegality of the items. Differences between 40 groups could be due to the effect of having acquired literacy and linguistic competence. 41 2 | P a g e 42

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“…Only participants who scored at least at the 75 th centile (more than 17 correct answers) on the test were included in the study and considered relatively skilled readers, and the two groups were matched according to the raw scores (deaf: mean=21.90, SD=3.08, range=18-27; hearing: mean=23.70, SD=3.25, range=17-27). All the participants also completed the Spanish version of LexTALE (Izura, Cuetos, & Brysbaert, 2014), a lexical decision test comprising 60 real words and 30 nonwords that provides a good estimate of language knowledge (e.g., de Bruin, Carreiras, & Duñabeitia, 2017;Lemhöfer & Broersma, 2012). The final scores (in percentages) showed that both groups completed the test accurately, demonstrating a high language knowledge and no differences among the groups (deaf: mean=91.16, SD=13.22;hearing: mean=95.66,SD=3.43;p=.22)…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%