Geoffrey G. Pinchbeck

Carleton University · School of Linguistics and Language Studies

Recent technological advancements have meant that the classroom is no longer necessarily the only source of input for foreign language learners with other sources such as videogames gaining attention. The potential for gaming as a valuable source of language input may lie in its popularity, as it has been shown to be one of the most common extracur...

While word-frequency lists have been commonly used as indexes of word usefulness, their role as a proxy for learner word knowledge is unclear. Word knowledge in a structured sample (N = 625) of Japanese university-level EFL learners, operationalized using dichotomous Rasch modeling of test-item data, was used as an external reference criterion to i...

Vocableveltest.org is a testing platform on which users can create on- line self-marking meaning-recall (reading or listening) and form-recall (typing) tests that address a number of limitations of the existing vocabulary level tests and vocabulary size tests. A major limitation of many existing vocabulary tests is the written receptive meaning-rec...

This paper introduces a novel online vocabulary profiling application called the New Word Level Checker (https://nwlc.pythonanywhere.com/) and word list resources used by the application. First, the rationale for developing another web vocabulary profiler and the word lists included in the application are described. Next, the lexical units (i.e., h...

Hashimoto (2021) reported a correlation of −.50 (r 2 = .25) between word frequency rank and difficulty, concluding the construct of modern vocabulary size tests is questionable. In this response we show that the relationship between frequency and difficulty is clear albeit non-linear and demonstrate that if a wider range of frequencies is tested an...

In response to our State-of-the-Scholarship critical commentary (Stoeckel et al., 2021), Stuart Webb (2021) asserts that there is no research supporting our suggestions for improving tests of written receptive vocabulary knowledge by (a) using meaning-recall items, (b) making fewer presumptions about learner knowledge of word families, and (c) usin...

This article examines how English as a foreign language learners might be better matched to reading texts using automatic readability analysis. Specifically, I examine how the lexical decoding component of readability might be validated. In Japan, readability has been mostly determined by publishers or by professional reading organizations who only...

In this paper we describe bonusing as a strategy to continuously extend students' mathematical understanding from tasks initially offered in the classroom. While this strategy resembles enrichment activities often described in approaches based on Mastery Learning, there are fundamental differences in our use of assessment and the nature of the task...

Here, we report on the development of a theoretical framework for mathematics teaching that looks aside from common traditional / reform dichotomies. Attention is focused on managing the amount of new information students must attend to, while structuring that information in a manner that allows discernment of key features and continuous extension...

Book review

Transforming the classroom environment into a space of expanding possibilities requires learning experiences that challenge and expand learners’ understandings. Building on Metz et al’s. (2015) suggestion to structure mathematical variation in a responsive manner that keeps all students intrinsically engaged in deepening their mathematical understa...

This presentation will provide insights into how detailed scales of English lexis for K-12 learners (i.e. majority-language-monolinguals, bilinguals and minority-language ELLs) might be developed and employed for research and pedagogical purposes. Corpus genre and modality, and definition of ’word’ (lemmas v. families) are key issues when using fre...

This presentation will examine the relationship between vocabulary use in writing and academic success in mainstream, grade-12 English Language Arts (ELA) classes. There have been recent calls for academic language to be given a more explicit and prominent role in mainstream public educational planning across the curricula in the U.S. and Canada; h...

Immigrants and the children of immigrants who have completed their schooling in Canadian school settings, commonly referred to as Generation 1.5, are increasingly identified in the research literature as academically at risk due to inadequately developed academic language proficiency and learning strategies. This article describes the design, devel...

When exposed to diverse growth conditions in vitro, cells can respond by entering states of proliferation, quiescence, differentiation or apoptosis. While the choices among these states can be influenced by proto-oncogene expression, how these disparate outcomes are achieved remains poorly understood. To address these issues, we have generated rode...