Menu Close
The Conversation

Articles on Language skills

Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 articles
Developmental language disorder may be missed as it often doesn’t appear foremost as a language impairment. (Shutterstock)

If your child has reading, school or social struggles, it may be DLD: Developmental language disorder

Elin Thordardottir, McGill University; James Law, Newcastle University, and Susan Roulstone, University of the West of England

Developmental language disorder affects more than seven per cent of children, yet is not well known. If your child struggles in school, social interactions or reading, the underlying issue may be DLD.
Senator Pauline Hanson says Australia’s immigration policy has led to “culturally separate communities” in Australian cities. AAP/Mick Tsikas

FactCheck: do ‘over a million’ people in Australia not speak English ‘well or at all’?

Ingrid Piller, Macquarie University

Senator Pauline Hanson raised concerns about immigration and social cohesion, saying ‘more than a million people’ in Australia ‘cannot speak English well or at all’. Let’s look at the numbers.
Learning difficulties or challenges such as dyslexia or Autism Spectrum Disorder may be masked by language ability for students from non-English speaking backgrounds. Shutterstock

Three issues language proficiency can hide for students from non-English speaking backgrounds

Clemence Due, University of Adelaide and Sally Baker, UNSW Sydney

Difficulty with English language can mask other difficulties culturally and linguistically diverse students may have, such as Austism or dyslexia.
Far fewer Americans speak a second language than in most other developed countries – and the problem starts in the classroom. Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com

The true failure of foreign language instruction

Catherine Snow, Harvard University

Whether it’s due to native language loss or unsupported high school curricula, the lack of bilingualism in the US is notable. Why can’t more Americans speak another language? How should that change?
Proper note construction helps students identify the gaps in their understanding. Shutterstock

Better note-taking can help students who struggle with English

Shalini Dukhan, University of the Witwatersrand; Ann Kathleen Cameron, University of the Witwatersrand, and Elisabeth Ann Brenner, University of the Witwatersrand

Learning is an independent activity at university. Students who don’t speak English as a mother tongue struggle to decode the content, let alone make sense of it.
All rhetorical techniques are designed to enhance one of the three pillars of communication: ethos, logos and pathos. Benson Kua

Think you know your rhetorical structures? I can’t even …

Joan Leach, Australian National University

We all use rhetorical structures. But, unless we’re skilled in their use, as politicians and advertisers clearly are, we don’t necessarily grasp their full manipulative power.
The language that’s spoken in science classrooms is very different to every day English – even mother tongue English speakers may struggle because of this. From www.shutterstock.com

Helping learners become fluent in the language of science classrooms

Samuel Ouma Oyoo, University of the Witwatersrand

We view school science as largely a practical subject, but pupils must understand the language of science – which is often very different from every day language – if they are to excel.
Bowe Bergdahl was released in a prisoner exchange on 31 May. Intelcenter Handout/EPA

Can Bowe Bergdahl really have forgotten how to speak English?

Monika Schmid, University of Essex

When US soldier Bowe Bergdahl was released after being held captive by the Afghan Taliban for five years, his father said his son was “having trouble speaking English”. Many will find this statement incredible…

Related Topics

  1. Academic performance
  2. Apps
  3. Bilingualism
  4. Communication
  5. English language
  6. Immigration
  7. Language
  8. Language learning
  9. Learning difficulty
  10. Multilingualism

Top contributors

More