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This ecologically valid audit was presented as an example of clinically relevant, ‘on-the-job’ translational research in the presentation entitled ‘Behaviours that Challenge in Dementia care’ by Duffy and James at FPOP 2018. The study examined the impact of formulation-led interventions on an organic inpatient unit over a 12 month period; six months baseline versus six months formulation-led interventions. A lower number of problematic patient incidences were observed in the formulation phase. To control for the possibility of ‘seasonal’ effects, the results of the formulation unit (Unit 1) were compared to an inpatient unit in the same NHS Trust (Unit 2). The number of incidences in the second unit were significantly higher in all phases of the 12 month assessment period, indicating that the second unit experienced more problematic behaviours. A comparison of the two units showed that they differed in a number of ways, for example Unit 2 was a traditional psychiatry-led eight-bedded unit, whereas the first was a nurse-led unit with 15 beds.

Background and aimAcute pancreatitis (AP) is associated with organ failures and systemic complications, most commonly acute respiratory failure (ARF) and acute kidney injury. So far, no studies have analysed the predictors and hospitalisation outcomes, of patients with AP who developed ARF. The aim of this study was to measure the prevalence of ARF in AP and to determine the clinical predictors for ARF and mortality in AP.MethodsThis is a retrospective cohort study using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database from the year 2005–2014. The study population consisted of all hospitalisations with a primary or secondary discharge diagnosis of AP, which is further stratified based on the presence of ARF. The outcome measures include in-hospital mortality, hospital length of stay and hospitalisation cost.ResultsIn our study, about 5.4% of patients with AP had a codiagnosis of ARF, with a mortality rate of 26.5%. The significant predictors for ARF include sepsis, pleural effusion, pneumonia and cardiogenic shock. Key variables that were associated with a higher risk of mortality include mechanical ventilation, age more than 65 years, sepsis and cancer (excluding pancreatic cancer). The presence of ARF increased hospital stay by 8.3 days and hospitalisation charges by US$103 460.ConclusionIn this study, we demonstrate that ARF is a significant risk factor for increased hospital mortality, greater length of stay and higher hospitalisation charges in patients with AP. This underlines significantly higher resource utilisation in patients with a dual diagnosis of AP-ARF.

Background Human monoclonal antibody (mAb) treatments are promising for COVID-19 prevention or therapy. The pre-exposure prophylactic efficacy of neutralizing antibodies that are engineered with mutations to extend their persistence in human serum and the neutralizing antibody titer in serum required for protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection remain poorly characterized. Methods The Fc-region of two neutralizing mAbs (COV2-2130 and COV2-2381) targeting non-overlapping epitopes on the receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was engineered to extend their persistence in humans and reduce interactions with Fc gamma receptors. We assessed protection by individual antibodies or a combination of the two antibodies (designated ADM03820) given prophylactically by intravenous or intramuscular route in a non-human primate (NHP) model of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Findings Passive transfer of individual mAbs or ADM03820 conferred virological protection in the NHP respiratory tract in a dose-dependent manner, and ADM03820 potently neutralized SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in vitro. We defined a protective serum neutralizing antibody titer and concentration in NHPs for passively transferred human antibodies that acted by direct viral neutralization. Conclusions In summary, we demonstrate that neutralizing antibodies with extended half-life and lacking Fc-mediated effector functions are efficient for pre-exposure prophylaxis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in NHPs. These results support clinical development of ADM03820 for COVID-19 prevention. Funding This research was supported by a contract from the JPEO-CBRND (W911QY-20-9-003), 20-05, the Joint Sciences and Technology Office and the Joint Program Executive Office (MCDC-16-01-002 JSTO, JPEO), DARPA grant (HR0011-18-2-0001), NIH grant (R01 AI157155), and the 2019 Future Insight Prize from Merck KGaA., Graphical Abstract, In this work, Cobb et al. described a combination of two human neutralizing antibodies, engineered with extended half-life and lacking Fc effector functions, which protected non-human primates against SARS-CoV-2 infection when given prophylactically by intravenous or intramuscular route. The serum antibody titer required for virological protection was defined.

Une approche pedagogique en langue seconde (L2) incluant des references aux langues connues des etudiants pourrait comporter de nombreux avantages cognitifs, pedagogiques et socioaffectifs. Toutefois, en classe de L2 multilingue, l’utilisation du repertoire langagier (RL) des etudiants a peu ete exploree. Cette recherche etudie donc la faisabilite de l’approche interlangagiere Comparons nos langues (Auger, 2005) aupres d’immigrants adultes dans un contexte multilingue. Les questions de recherche explorent les attitudes des etudiants et des enseignantes lors des activites, leur perception de la valeur du RL, et la variation dans les reactions en fonction du niveau (debutant ou intermediaire) des etudiants. Deux enseignantes de francais L2 ont developpe et enseigne quatre activites interlangagieres suivant l’approche, qui ont fait l’objet d’une captation video et d’une analyse. Les reactions des participants ont ete recueillies au moyen de retroactions ecrites, d’entrevues de groupe avec les etudiants et d’entrevues individuelles avec les enseignantes. Les resultats revelent des reactions generalement positives, dont temoignent le niveau d’engagement des participants et leurs commentaires appreciatifs sur l’approche, ainsi que l’appreciation des etudiants de la reconnaissance de leur identite linguistique. Une analyse Chi2 demontre qu’il n’y a pas de difference significative entre les retroactions ecrites par niveau. Toutefois, les entrevues de groupe revelent que l’approche etait mieux recue lorsqu’elle ciblait l’enseignement de nouveaux points de langue. L’etude demontre l’interet des participants pour une approche interlangagiere et son potentiel pour ameliorer l’experience d’apprentissage d’une L2 chez des adultes immigrants.

Childhood cancer survivor (CCS) numbers are increasing as a result of advances in both treatment and supportive care. This positive outcome is tempered by the recognition of a high burden of chronic health conditions. Here, we review the nutritional concerns of CCS, including dietary habits after treatment and the factors during treatment that may contribute to chronic health conditions. Dietary interventions that have been conducted in CCS will be summarized along with focused goals of these interventions. We will also address the need to leverage these interventions to reduce the risk of chronic disease in CCS.

Background Platelet clumping is a common occurrence during peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) collection using the Spectra Optia mononuclear cell (MNC) protocol. If clumping persists, it may prevent continuation of the collection and interfere with proper MNC separation. This study is the first to report the incidence of clumping, identify precollection factors associated with platelet clumping, and describe the degree to which platelet clumping interferes with HSC product yield. Study design and methods In total, 258 HSC collections performed on 116 patients using the Optia MNC protocol were reviewed. Collections utilized heparin in anticoagulant citrate dextrose to facilitate large-volume leukapheresis. Linear and logistic regression models were utilized to determine which precollection factors were predictive of platelet clumping and whether clumping was associated with product yield or collection efficiency. Results Platelet clumping was observed in 63% of collections. Multivariable analysis revealed that a lower white blood cell count was an independent predictor of clumping occurrence. Chemotherapy mobilization and a lower peripheral blood CD34+ cell count were predictors of the degree of clumping. Procedures with clumping had higher collection efficiency but lower blood volume processed on average, resulting in no difference in collection yields. Citrate toxicity did not correlate with clumping. Conclusion Although platelet clumping is a common technical problem seen during HSC collection, the total CD34+ cell-collection yields were not affected by clumping. WBC count, mobilization approach, and peripheral blood CD34+ cell count can help predict clumping and potentially drive interventions to proactively manage clumping.

Depression is one of the more common diagnoses encountered in primary care, and primary care in turn provides the majority of care for patients with depression. Many approaches have been tried in efforts to improve the outcomes of depression management. This article outlines the partnership between the University of Washington (UW) Neighborhood Clinics and the UW Department of Psychiatry in implementing a collaborative care approach to integrating the management of anxiety and depression in the ambulatory primary care setting. This program was built on the chronic care model, which utilizes a team approach to caring for the patient. In addition to the patient and the primary care provider (PCP), the team included a medical social worker (MSW) as care manager and a psychiatrist as team consultant. The MSW would manage a registry of patients with depression at a clinic with several PCPs, contacting the patients on a regular basis to assess their status, and consulting with the psychiatrist on a weekly basis to discuss patients who were not achieving the goals of care. Any recommendation (eg, a change in medication dose or class) made by the psychiatrist was communicated to the PCP, who in turn would work with the patient on the new recommendation. This collaborative care approach resulted in a significant improvement in the number of patients who achieved care plan goals. The authors believe this is an effective method for health systems to integrate mental health services into primary care. (Population Health Management 2016;19:81–87)

Objective: To identify predictors of faster time to virological suppression among infants starting combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) early in infancy. Design: Cohort study of infants from Europe and Thailand included in studies participating in the European Pregnancy and Paediatric HIV Cohort Collaboration. Methods: Infants with perinatal HIV starting cART aged less than 6 months with at least 1 viral load measurement within 15 months of cART initiation were included. Multi-variable interval-censored flexible parametric proportional hazards models were used to assess predictors of faster virological suppression, with timing of suppression assumed to lie in the interval between last viral load at least 400 and first viral load less than 400 copies/ml. Results: Of 420 infants, 59% were female and 56% from Central/Western Europe, 26% United Kingdom/Ireland, 15% Eastern Europe and 3% Thailand; 46 and 54% started a boosted protease inhibitor-based or nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-based regimen, respectively. At cART initiation, the median age, CD4(+) % and viral load were 2.9 [interquartile range (IQR): 1.4-4.1] months, 34 (IQR: 24-45)% and 5.5 (IQR: 4.5-6.0) log(10) copies/ml, respectively. Overall, an estimated 89% (95% confidence interval: 86-92%) achieved virological suppression within 12 months of cART start. In multivariable analysis, younger age [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR): 0.84 per month older; P < 0.001], higher CD4(+) % (aHR: 1.11 per 10% higher; P=0.010) and lower log(10) viral load (aHR: 0.85 per log(10) higher; P < 0.001) at cART initiation independently predicted faster virological suppression. Conclusion: We observed a significant independent effect of age at cART initiation, even within a narrow 6 months window from birth. These findings support the earliest feasible cART initiation in infants and suggest that early therapy influences key virological and immunological parameters that could have important consequences for long-term health. Copyright (C) 2019 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

A synthetic strategy to access a novel family of nucleoside analogues bearing a C3'-nitrile substituted all-carbon quaternary center is presented herein. These purine bearing scaffolds were tested in two pancreatic cancer cell lines harboring either wild-type (BxPC3) or G12V KRAS (Capan2) mutations. A promising compound was shown to have significantly greater efficacy in the Capan2 cell line as compared to Gemcitabine, the clinical gold standard used to treat pancreatic cancer.

Background Published estimates of mortality and progression to AIDS as children with HIV approach adulthood are limited. We describe rates and risk factors for death and AIDS-defining events in children and adolescents after initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) in 17 middle-and high-income countries, including some in Western and Central Europe (W&CE), Eastern Europe (Russia and Ukraine), and Thailand. Methods and findings Children with perinatal HIV aged < 18 years initiating cART were followed until their 21st birthday, transfer to adult care, death, loss to follow-up, or last visit up until 31 December 2013. Rates of death and first AIDS-defining events were calculated. Baseline and time-updated risk factors for early/late ( 6 months of cART) death and progression to AIDS were assessed. Of 3,526 children included, 32% were from the United Kingdom or Ireland, 30% from elsewhere in W&CE, 18% from Russia or Ukraine, and 20% from Thailand. At cART initiation, median age was 5.2 (IQR 1.4-9.3) years; 35% of children aged < 5 years had a CD4 lymphocyte percentage < 15% in 1997-2003, which fell to 15% of children in 2011 onwards (p < 0.001). Similarly, 53% and 18% of children >= 5 years had a CD4 count < 200 cells/mm(3) in 1997-2003 and in 2011 onwards, respectively (p < 0.001). Median follow-up was 5.6 (2.9-8.7) years. Of 94 deaths and 237 first AIDS-defining events, 43 (46%) and 100 (42%) were within 6 months of initiating cART, respectively. Multivariable predictors of early death were: being in the first year of life; residence in Russia, Ukraine, or Thailand; AIDS at cART start; initiating cART on a nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI)-based regimen; severe immune suppression; and low BMI-for-age z-score. Current severe immune suppression, low current BMI-for-age z-score, and current viral load > 400 c/mL predicted late death. Predictors of early and late progression to AIDS were similar. Study limitations include incomplete recording of US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) disease stage B events and serious adverse events in some countries; events that were distributed over a long time period, and that we lacked power to analyse trends in patterns and causes of death over time. Conclusions In our study, 3,526 children and adolescents with perinatal HIV infection initiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) in countries in Europe and Thailand. We observed that over 40% of deaths occurred 6 months after initiation of cART.

Explanations for the well-documented second language (L2) learning challenge of the English regular past include verb semantics (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000), phonetic properties (Goad, White, & Steele, 2003), and frequency factors (Collins, Trofimovich, White, Cardoso, & Horst, 2009). Difficulty perceiving past-tense morphology (i.e., hearing –ed in the input) has received less research attention. In this study, we explored the roles of three perceptual factors (phonological environment, speech rate, semantic clues) among 106 L2 learners and 81 English speakers of a similar age. Experiment 1 was a forced-choice auditory identification task contrasting perceptually ‘ easy ’([əd] + vowel) and ‘ hard ’ ([t] or [d] + consonant) regular past contexts at normal conversational speed. Experiment 2 contrasted easy and hard contexts at a slowed-down speech rate. Experiment 3 included time adverbials that matched or mismatched the tense marker (e.g., walked the dog now vs. walked the dog yesterday ). The L2 learners behaved at just above chance at normal conversational speed in both contexts, and slowing speech down helped them in easy contexts only. The English speakers were more accurate in easy than in hard contexts regardless of speech rate. Both L2 learners and English speakers also relied on adverbials at the expense of the phonetic cue to past morphology (– ed ). Implications of these findings for the roles of input and frequency in L2 learning, and for pronunciation teaching (i.e., setting reasonable learning goals) are discussed. Resume: Le defi que represente l’apprentissage du passe regulier en anglais langue seconde (AL2) est bien documente. Les explications portent sur la semantique verbale (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000), les proprietes phonetiques (Goad, White et Steele, 2003) et les facteurs de frequence (Collins, Trofimovich, White, Cardoso et Horst, 2009). En revanche, la difficulte a percevoir la morphologie du temps passe (a savoir, entendre la terminaison en –ed de l’enonce) a recu moins d’attention de la part des chercheurs. Dans cette etude, nous avons analyse le role joue par trois facteurs de perception (l’environnement phonologique, la vitesse d’elocution, les indices semantiques) chez 106 apprenants d’AL2 et 81 locuteurs de l’anglais du meme groupe d’âge. L’experience 1 consistait en une tâche d’identification auditive a choix force opposant, a une vitesse de conversation normale, des contextes ou le passe regulier etait « facile » ([əd] + voyelle) ou « difficile » ([t] ou [d] + consonne) a percevoir. L’experience 2 opposait des contextes faciles et difficiles avec une vitesse d’elocution reduite. L’experience 3 comprenait des adverbes de temps qui correspondaient ou non au temps du verbe (p. ex. walked the dog now et walked the dog yesterday).A la vitesse de conversation normale, les apprenants ont reagi un peu mieux qu’aleatoirement dans les deux contextes, et la diminution de la vitesse d’elocution les a aides seulement dans les contextes faciles. Les anglophones etaient plus precis dans les contextes faciles que dans les contextes difficiles, peu importe la vitesse d’elocution. Les apprenants comme les anglophones se fient aux adverbes plutot qu’a l’indice phonetique de la morphologie du passe (–ed). Les consequences de ces resultats sur le role de l’enonce et de la frequence dans l’apprentissage de la L2 et dans l’enseignement de la prononciation (c’est-a-dire l’etablissement d’objectifs d’apprentissage raisonnables) sont presentees.

Therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) on severely ill neonates poses many technical challenges, including obtaining adequate vascular access. In addition, clinical challenges such as risk of hypotension and cardiovascular instability are more pronounced in these patients. We report an approach to successfully managing these challenges while performing TPE on a 4 kilogram neonate using the Spectra Optia and 22 G venous access.

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a much-debated subject in terms of its efficacy and status as the ‘treatment of choice’ for depression and anxiety. This article critically analyses the claimed merits of this therapy over others, and evaluates its efficacy as a standalone ‘combined therapy’, by examining dismantling, additive, comparative and component studies. The article examines behavioural activation in particular, as the contested active ingredient in the cognitive behavioural model, and the application of this and CBT in the context of evidence-based, person-centred and holistic mental health nursing practice.

The objective of this research was to provide longitudinal, corpus-based evidence of actual teacher behaviour with respect to the teaching of second language (L2) pronunciation in a communicative language learning context. The data involved 40 hours of videotaped lessons from three experienced teachers recorded four times at 100-hour increments during the 400-hour programme for grade six (11- to 12-year-olds) francophone learners in Quebec, Canada. The videotaped lessons were initially transcribed and coded for individual pronunciation teaching episodes, then analysed in terms of their type, linguistic target and impact. Results demonstrated that pronunciation teaching episodes were infrequent (accounting for 10% of all language-related episodes), that pronunciation teaching targeted individual sounds (to the exclusion of other aspects of pronunciation) and that most pronunciation teaching episodes were not incorporated into lesson plans but instead involved various kinds of corrective feedback in respons...

Body mass index (BMI) is an inadequate measure of nutritional status in children and adolescents with cancer as it does not distinguish muscle from adipose tissue. However, arm anthropometry offers simple assessments of fat mass and lean body mass; especially valuable in low- and middle-income countries where the great majority of young people with cancer live and access to sophisticated expensive measures of body composition is markedly limited.The nutritional status of 75 long-term survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia was assessed by arm anthropometry, in addition to BMI, in a cross-sectional cohort study. Normal ranges for triceps skin fold thickness (TSFT, a surrogate for fat mass) and mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC, a surrogate for lean body mass) were between the 15th and 85th percentiles for age and sex. Overweight/obesity was classified as a TSFT85th percentile and sarcopenia as an MUAC 15th percentile. Height normalized indices for TSFT and MUAC were also calculated.Overweight/obesity was identified in 1/3 of subjects by a BMI25 and by TSFT; and 20% of the subjects had a TSFT95th percentile. Only two subjects were sarcopenic. None met the combined criteria for sarcopenic obesity. TSFT and MUAC/height indices did not add sensitivity to identification of sarcopenia or obesity.TSFT is a useful measure of overweight/obesity in this population, but MUAC does not identify a notable proportion with sarcopenia. Further resolution may be provided by more sophisticated measures of body composition.

We develop a statistical procedure for multivariate analysis of ethogram data. We demonstrate the procedure on crab, elephant, dog and tiger ethograms. We show it is biologically meaningful and visually intuitive. We provide a sample dataset and R code for the technique.

Assessment of nutritional status in children with cancer is important but measures based on weight can be problematic at diagnosis, especially in those with advanced disease. Likewise, dual energy x-ray absorptiometry may be confounded by other radiological procedures and is not commonly available in low-income countries where most children with cancer live. Arm anthropometry is not subject to these constraints. In a study sample of 99 Canadian patients with cancer at diagnosis, mid-upper arm circumference correlated well with lean body mass as measured by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry but triceps skin fold thickness was a poor predictor of fat mass. Arm anthropometry can be a useful tool for the measurement of nutritional status in children with cancer. However, further studies, particularly in low-income countries and in children with solid tumors at diagnosis, are required to determine the full extent of its utility.

Laufer and Nation (1995) proposed that the Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP) can estimate the size of a second-language writer's productive vocabulary. Meara (2005) questioned the sensitivity and the reliability of LFPs for estimating vocabulary sizes, based on the results obtained from probabilistic simulations of LFPs. However, the underlying mathematical model for the simulations, based on Zipf's law, allows such an analysis to be done directly, without recourse to simulations. The direct analysis has the further advantage of demonstrating how variability estimates obtained from within the 1k band (the 1,000 most frequent words of English) portion of written texts may explain the simulation results. The findings confirm that the ability of LFPs to distinguish between groups diminishes as vocabulary size increases. However, for fairly homogeneous groups, LFPs are able to provide a coarse but reasonable tool for vocabulary size estimation. We also explore modifications to Zipf's law that may result in a more accurate model of word frequencies in natural language.

In this longitudinal study we investigated whether different distributions of instructional time would have differential effects on the acquisition of English by young (aged 11–12 years) French-speaking learners. Eleven classes of Grade 6 students (N = 230) in two versions of a similar intensive English as a second language program were followed throughout their intensive experience. In one program, the 400 hours of instruction were concentrated in a 5-month block; in the other, the 400 hours were experienced in a series of intensive exposures across the full 10-month academic year. Language development was compared across the two contexts four times via a battery of comprehension and production measures. Overall, the findings showed substantial progress over time for both groups, with no clear learning advantage for either concentrating or distributing the intensive experience. These results are consistent with research comparing the effects of massed and distributed conditions on the learning of complex skills in other domains. The practical implications of the findings for the organization of instructional time for second language learning, as well as directions for future research in which variables such as age, proficiency, and learning targets are manipulated, are discussed.

Obesity is increasingly prevalent in affluent societies and portends considerable morbidity. This is especially true in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in whom the metabolic syndrome may begin during therapy, demanding clarification of the trajectory of weight gain so that effective interventions may be developed. In this retrospective study of body mass index from a single institution over a 20-year period, almost 15% of children with ALL were at risk of overweight or frankly overweight (body mass index >85th centile) at diagnosis. This proportion increased steadily, reaching 40% at the end of treatment. Strategies to limit weight gain will have to be instituted early in the management of children with ALL, and will probably have to be maintained throughout and after the completion of active treatment.

The nutritional status of children with cancer is clinically important. In an effort to separate the influences of disease and treatment, we studied children at the time of diagnosis. A total of 99 children underwent assessment by 24 hours dietary recall, measurement of body mass index (BMI), and analysis of body composition by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA scan). The group averages for calorie intake and BMI were close to the median population norms but ranged widely among individuals. As a group the study participants exceeded the Dietary Reference Intake for protein. Nine children (9%) had a BMIfifth percentile. There were statistically significant but at best moderate correlations between dietary intake and body composition by DXA scan. Twenty-four hours dietary recall may not provide accurate assessment of nutritional status in individual children with cancer at diagnosis. However, DXA scans cannot be undertaken in a timely fashion on all children at this point. Alternative methods of assessment are being explored.

Research has shown that second language (L2) learners that become aware of linguistic features during grammar-based tasks are better able to process these features on a posttest compared to learners that do not focus on these features. However, much L2 input does not come in the form of grammar-based tasks. This study investigates whether learners who become aware of French grammatical gender during a meaning-based task are better able to process these forms than learners whose experience with the same task does not lead to awareness of the feature. Thirty-six Anglophones with low-level French were exposed to reliable noun-ending clues to grammatical gender whilst completing a crossword task. A think-aloud protocol and two probe questions measured awareness. A pre- to posttest design measured accuracy with French nouns ending in eau (e.g. le cadeau). The results revealed no advantage for learners who became aware of the noun-ending clues during exposure: all learners improved in their ability to judge the...

The present study was carried out in French immersion classrooms in an urban Quebec school board that is increasingly characterised by the heterogeneity of its French-dominant, English-dominant, and French/English bilingual student population. The study explored the extent to which a bilingual read-aloud project would (1) raise teachers' awareness of the bilingual resources of their students, (2) encourage students' cross-linguistic collaboration, and (3) promote teachers' cross-curricular and cross-linguistic collaboration. The participants were three English and three French teachers of three classes of six- to eight-year-old children. The French and English teachers of each class read aloud to their students from the same storybooks over four months, alternating the reading of one chapter in the French class and another in the English class. The data consist of (1) video recordings of the read-aloud sessions and discussion about the stories, (2) interviews and stimulated-recall sessions with the teache...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether it is possible to distinguish between “difficult” and “easy” constructions for second language (L2) learners by examining characteristics of the structures as they occur in aural input. In a multidimensional analysis of 3 English structures with different acquisition profiles—the simple past, possessive determiners his/her, and the progressive aspect—we examined the phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexicosemantic characteristics of the forms as they occurred in a 110,000-word corpus of instructional talk to L2 learners. We analyzed the type/token distributions of the forms, their lexical properties, and their perceptual salience. Our findings revealed key input factors that distinguished between the early-acquired progressive, on the one hand, and the later-acquired past and his/her determiners, on the other hand. These results lend support to theoretical accounts of the input–acquisition relationship and also generate hypotheses for manipulating instructional input to increase the salience of opaque constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The articles in this special issue explore how the acquisition of linguistic constructions as form–function mappings is affected by the distribution and saliency of forms in oral input, by their functional interpretations, and by the reliabilities of their form–function mappings. They consider the psycholinguistics of language learning following general cognitive principles of category learning, with schematic constructions emerging from usage. They analyze how learning is driven by the frequency and frequency distribution of exemplars within construction, the salience of their form, the significance of their functional interpretation, the match of their meaning to the construction prototype, and the reliability of their mappings. These investigations address a range of morphological and syntactic constructions in instructed, uninstructed, and laboratory settings. They include both experimental and corpus-based approaches (some conducted longitudinally) and consider the relationship between input and acquisition in the short term and over time, with a particular emphasis on spoken input directed to second and foreign language learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English learners of French whose first language (L1) does not mark the perfective/imperfective distinction have shown verb semantic influence and an overall preference for perfective over imperfective in their use of second language (L2) tense–aspect markers. This study investigated whether learners whose L1 marks the perfective/imperfective distinction would exhibit similar acquisition profiles. Hispanophones (n= 17) and Anglophones (n= 15) at similar levels of French L2 proficiency completed a 68-item cloze task with equal numbers of perfective and imperfective contexts distributed across 4 semantic categories: stative, activity, accomplishment, and achievements. In a 20-minute retrospective interview, a subsample of the participants (8 Hispanophones, 11 Anglophones) commented on factors influencing their tense–aspect choices. An ANOVA of 1,012 predicates revealed that unlike the Anglophones, the Hispanophones did not prefer perfective over imperfective, and they were also less influenced by verb semantics. The learners' comments suggest that the Hispanophones made effective use of L1–L2 similarities, whereas the Anglophones appealed to verb semantics and partially understood pedagogical rules, which were frequently associated with inappropriate uses of the forms.

To extend the reach of the second language (L2) classroom, learners may be given opportunities to interact with native speakers through contact assignments or volunteer work organized through their L2 program. An underlying assumption of these practices is that `real-world' and classroom experience offer different but complementary opportunities for oral interaction. The nature of the difference is not well documented, however, which makes it difficult to assess the relative contributions that interaction in the two environments may make to the language learning process. In this study, we compared selected aspects of oral interaction experienced by two advanced adult L2 speakers of English in two contexts: one where they were students in a nine-week communicative ESL class and another where they were volunteer tutors in a three-week summer program for academically at-risk English-speaking children. The findings revealed differences in the types and quantities of activities during which oral interaction occurred, the frequency with which they were completed, and the degree of attention that the participants paid to language during communication. Overall, these differences reflected the different roles the L2 speakers assumed in the two contexts: that of language `learner' in the classroom and of language `user' outside the classroom.

The Modern Language Journal has long been an important venue for the publication of research and reflection on the teaching and learning of foreign languages (FL) in classroom contexts. In this article, we offer a perspective on the contemporary FL classroom, informed by a descriptive survey of all studies that took place in FL classes that were published in the Modern Language Journal (MLJ) between 2001 and 2014 inclusive (N = 97). This yielded a profile of FL classrooms in terms of geographical locations; languages being taught; the amount and distribution of instructional time; and the age and language backgrounds of the students. The findings revealed that FL environments benefiting from research investigations in the MLJ typically involve older learners in on-site (rather than virtual) classes that afford limited exposure to the FL, which was typically English (in non-English speaking countries) and French, German or Spanish (in English-speaking countries). We consider the implications of these findings for the study of FLs in the future and identify aspects of FL classrooms that merit greater research attention as the MLJ moves into its second centenary. Keywords: foreign language; language teaching; language learning; language classrooms; EFL; instructional time

This paper reports on two studies that investigated the effectiveness of a contrastive analysis type of pedagogical intervention, which aimed to promote interlanguage development in the use and understanding of English possessive determiners (PDs) among adolescent second language (L2) learners. The first research question asked whether explicit instruction involving a rule of thumb, contrastive information and repeated contextualised practice of the rule would allow learners with French and Catalan/Spanish native languages in ‘regular’ limited-exposure programmes to make progress in using and understanding English PDs. The findings in both contexts confirm that this type of form-focused instruction, which had proven successful in more acquisition-rich contexts, could also help school learners in ‘drip feed’ instructional settings extract greater benefit from their limited contact with the L2. The second research question asked whether the developmental framework for the acquisition of English PDs, origina...

In making decisions regarding the focus for grammar teaching, ESL instructors may take into consideration errors that appear to result from the influence of their students' first language(s) (L1). There is also evidence from language acquisition research suggesting that for some grammatical features, learners of different L1 backgrounds may face similar types of challenges. This article examines the issues of L1 influence and common developmental patterns in the domain of verb tense and aspect. The first part of the article provides an overview of some of the tense-aspect learning challenges faced by learners in general. The second summarizes findings from a study that compared the acquisition of the simple past in English by Japanese and French-speaking learners. In the final section, teaching suggestions, based on the insights gained from acquisition research, are offered. The different activities presented all focus students' attention on the contextual factors which motivate choices about the most appropriate tense-aspect forms for conveying intended meanings.

Abstract: The study drew on an 80,000-word corpus consisting of narrative texts produced in response to picture prompts by 210 beginner-level francophone learners of English (11-12-year-olds). The unique feature of the corpus is its longitudinal character: The samples were collected at four 100-hour intervals of intensive language instruction, during which time students made considerable progress in listening and speaking. However, analysis of these staged sub-corpora using Laufer and Nation's 1995 Lexical Frequency Profile did not identify the expected increase in use of less frequent words. Further analyses using three measures available at (a Greco-Latin cognate index, a count of word families, and a types-per-family ratio) showed that although the learners continued to use large proportions of frequent words, their productive vocabulary featured fewer French cognates, a greater variety of frequent words, and more morphologically developed forms. Implications for frequency-based vocabulary acquisition research and vocabulary teaching are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how retrospective verbal reports can contribute to our understanding of the factors influencing the interlanguage development of tense and grammatical a...

This study investigated the relationship between L1 and the developmental sequences for the acquisition of temporal morphology that are predicted by the aspect hypothesis. The use of tense-aspect markers in 7,784 past contexts by 139 Japanese- and French-speaking ESL learners was analyzed. A repeated measures ANOVA supported the predictions of the aspect hypothesis. For both L1 groups, the marking of past spread from achievements and accomplishments (telics) through activities to statives, and the preferred non-past responses for statives and activities were present and progressive, respectively. The magnitude, rather than the direction, of the lexical aspect effect with achievements was the only significant L1 difference. The results lend support to the hypothesis that the influence of lexical aspect on the acquisition of grammatical morphology is a language learning universal. They are also consistent with research on other linguistic features in which selective influence of L1 on developmental sequences has been observed.

Two cross-sectional studies (N = 70; N = 91) used a replication design to investigate the degree to which adult Francophone ESL learners' use of tense/aspect markers in past contexts supported the predictions of the aspect hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig, 1994) and the degree to which it showed L1 influence. Consistent with the aspect hypothesis, the learners were significantly more successful in using simple past with telics, struggled most with statives, and, in their nontarget responses, preferred progressive for activities and present for statives. The role of the L1 was restricted to the learners' association of nontarget perfect (a French-influenced form) with telics. The interpretation of the findings takes into account methodological issues and developmental constraints.