This exploratory study represents an attempt to investigate the factors that may affect the reading comprehension abilities of English as an additional language (EAL) learners. For this study, we examined a participant group of 31 (25 EAL and 6 first language English) learners studying at an international school in Japan. We assessed the participants according to four factors shown to influence reading comprehension: vocabulary knowledge, word decoding skills, reading fluency, and general linguistic ability. Our results show that differences in vocabulary knowledge show more variance in reading comprehension scores than the other factors examined in this study, highlighting the importance of vocabulary knowledge for reading comprehension. However, other factors such as reading fluency and general linguistic knowledge are also shown to be moderate to strong predictors of reading comprehension. Based on these results, we suggest that EAL learners need targeted language support to enhance academic text comprehension.

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While oral presentations are an important part of many university classes, because of the time and effort needed to transcribe spoken presentations for analysis, presentations are an underrepresented area of research. In order to help better understand the vocabulary used in oral presentations, 22 impromptu and prepared presentations from 11 first-year students were analyzed for lexical diversity using three different measures. The lexical diversity of these presentations was then correlated to a measure of the participants’ vocabulary knowledge. While there was a positive relationship between vocabulary knowledge and lexical diversity for all of the presentations, it was only statistically significant (τ = .55, p = .004 and τ = .40, p = .046) for the impromptu presentations. This shows that just having students learn vocabulary may not be enough; teachers also need to take the time to teach their students how to make their academic presentations more lexically diverse. 多くの大学の授業で口頭のプレゼンテーションが重要視されているものの、これまであまり研究が進んでいない領域である。口頭プレゼンテーションで使われる語彙についてよりよく理解するため、大学一年生11名が行った、即興的なものと準備されたものを含む22件のプレゼンテーションについて、語彙の多様性を分析した。そして、多様な言語表現と、発表者の持つ語彙知識の量との相関を調べた。語彙知識と使われた語彙の多様性との間には正の相関が認められたが、統計学的に有意と言えるのは、即興的なプレゼンテーションの方だけであった(τ = .55, p = .004 and τ = .40, p = .046)。これにより、学生の語彙学習だけでは学術発表でその語彙を使いこなすには十分でないだろうこと、また、学生がプレゼンテーションの場でより多様な言語表現を使えるように、教えていく必要があることが分かる。

A multi-gait approach is proposed in this paper for autonomous humanoid robot navigation and obstacle avoidance in unknown complex cluttered environments. The proposed approach is based on an environment-dependent adaptive switching between multiple gait strategies including, in particular, a new low-profile crawling gait that enables humanoid motion in tight vertically constrained spaces in addition to forward walking and side-stepping gaits. The path planning and obstacle avoidance system is based on the GODZILA algorithm that provides a computationally lightweight approach for navigation in unknown environments without requiring building of an environment map. The new low-profile crawling gait is laterally symmetric and utilizes a cooperative motion of both the hands and feet. The addition of this gait expands the set of environments that can be handled by the humanoid robot. The efficacy of the proposed approach is demonstrated through simulations and experimental studies on a NAO humanoid robot.