Search results for: language education

Authors: Terada Pinyo

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This study is the survey research, designed to find out the threshold competency of graduate students in terms of knowledge excellency and professional skills proficiency based on Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF). The sample group consisted of 240 students. The results were collected by stratified sampling, using study programs for each stage. The results were analysed and calculated by computer program. Statistics used during analysing were percentage, mean, and standard deviation. From the study, the threshold competency of graduate students were in very high score range in both overall and specific category. The top category which received the most score was interpersonal skills and responsibility, following by ethics and morality, knowledge and skills, and numerical communication and information technology.

Keywords: threshold competency, Thai qualifications framework for higher education, graduate school

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Authors: Sadeq Al Yaari, Muhammad Alkhunayn, Ayman Al Yaari, Montaha Al Yaari, Aayah Al Yaari, Adham Al Yaari, Sajedah Al Yaari, Fatehi Eissa

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Stuttering is a multidimensional disorder that is influenced by different factors. As a result of their un-understanding of the genuine reasons behind stuttering, psychiatrists and Speech and Language Pathologists/Therapists (SLP/Ts) are often unfamiliar with the psychoneurolinguistic characteristics, support needs, and the disability measurement impacting requested rehabilitation of the stuttering population. PubMed, PsycInfo, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google scholar searches, in addition to some unpublished literature, were conducted in this Systematic Literature Review and Meta-analysis (SLR and Meta-analysis) to identify whether stuttering is caused by psychological or neurological reasons. The study concluded that psychological, not neurolinguistic factors were identified as most significant for the causality of childhood stuttering. Stutterers have intact language skills, but impaired ability more to communicate with others than to form letters in the brain or to articulate them. The study recommends research in the future that sheds light on the adult stuttering population often left out of the focus of diagnosis and in need of further exploration vis-a-vis issues they encounter, as well as the possible ways to deal with them psychoneurolinguistically.

Keywords: causality, childhood stuttering, psychology, neurolinguistics, systematic literature review, meta-analysis

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Authors: Oscar E. Cariceo

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In Chile, social workers´ professional training is developed in the undergraduate level, mainly. Despite the fact that several schools have been launched Master of Social Work programs, the Bachelor in Social Work is the minimum qualification to start a professional career. In the current Chilean higher education system, there exist different financial aid options in order to guarantee equal access to higher education. These policies, which are student loans and scholarships, basically, are applied and distributed by Government agencies. They are linked to academic performance and socio-economic needs, in terms of standardized test scores and social vulnerability criteria. In addition, institutions that enroll students with high scores, also receive direct financial support. In other words, social work students must compete for the resources to pay for college tuitions and fees with other students from different programs and knowledge fields and, as a consequence, they can indirectly enhance schools´ money income. This work aims to describe the reality of social work students to access to financial aid in Chile. The analysis presents the results of the University Selection Test of students, who were accepted in social work undergraduate programs during 2014 related to their qualifications to apply to three main financial aid programs, and their contribution to attracting resources to their schools. In general, data show that social work students participate in a low proportion in the distribution of financial aid, both student loans and scholarships. Few of them reach enough scores to guarantee direct financial resources to their institutions. Therefore, this situation has deep implications on equal access to higher education for vulnerable students and affects equal access to training options for young social workers, due to the highly competitive financial aid system.

Keywords: social work, professional training, higher education, financial aid, equity

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Authors: Seyedeh Khadijeh. Mirbazel, Masoumeh Arjmandi

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Semantics is a linguistic approach and a scientific stream, and like all scientific streams, it is dynamic. The study of meaning is carried out in the broad semantic collections of words that form the discourse. In other words, meaning is not something that can be found in a word; rather, the formation of meaning is a process that takes place in a discourse as a whole. One of the contemporary semantic theories is Izutsu's Semantic Field Theory. According to this theory, the discovery of meaning depends on the function of words and takes place within the context of language. The purpose of this research is to identify the meaning of the word "Nas" in the discourse of verse 24 of Surah Al-Baqarah, which introduces "Nas" as the firewood of hell, but the translators have translated it as "people". The present research has investigated the semantic structure of the word "Nas" using the aforementioned theory through the descriptive-analytical method. In the process of investigation, by matching the semantic fields of the Quranic word "Nas", this research came to the conclusion that "Nas" implies those persons who have forgotten God and His covenant in believing in His Oneness. For this reason, God called them "Nas (the forgetful)" - the imperfect participle of the noun /næsiwoɔn/ in single trinity of Arabic language, which means “to forget”. Therefore, the intended meaning of "Nas" in the verses that have the word "Nas" is not equivalent to "People" which is a general noun.

Keywords: Nas, people, semantics, semantic field theory.

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Authors: Sandhya Baskaran, Hari Kumar Nagabushanam

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Sarcasm sentiment recognition is an area of natural language processing that is being probed into in the recent times. Even with the advancements in NLP, typical translations of words, sentences in its context fail to provide the exact information on a sentiment or emotion of a user. For example, if something bad happens, the statement ‘That's just what I need, great! Terrific!’ is expressed in a sarcastic tone which could be misread as a positive sign by any text-based analyzer. In this paper, we are presenting a unique real time ‘word with its tone’ spotting technique which would provide the sentiment analysis for a tone or pitch of a voice in combination with the words being expressed. This hybrid approach increases the probability for identification of special sentiment like sarcasm much closer to the real world than by mining text or speech individually. The system uses a tone analyzer such as YIN-FFT which extracts pitch segment-wise that would be used in parallel with a speech recognition system. The clustered data is classified for sentiments and sarcasm score for each of it determined. Our Simulations demonstrates the improvement in f-measure of around 12% compared to existing detection techniques with increased precision and recall.

Keywords: sarcasm recognition, tone-word spotting, natural language processing, pitch analyzer

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Authors: Jami Wang, Brian Kao, Davin Agustines

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COVID-19 highlighted the active discrimination against the Asian American population easily seen through media, social tension, and increased crimes against the specific population. It is well known that long-term racism can also have a large impact on both emotional and psychological well-being. However, the healthcare disparity during this time also revealed how the Asian American community lacked the research data, political support, and medical infrastructure for this particular population. During a time when Asian American fear for safety with decreasing mental health, telepsychiatry is particularly promising. COVID-19 demonstrated how well psychiatry could integrate with telemedicine, with psychiatry being the second most utilized telemedicine visits. However, the Asian American community did not utilize the telepsychiatry resources as much as other groups. Because of this, we wanted to understand why the patient population who was affected the most by COVID-19 mentally did not seek out care. To do this, we decided to study the top top telepsychiatry platforms. The current top telepsychiatry companies in the United States include Teladoc and BetterHelp. In the Teladoc mental health sector, they only had 4 available languages (English, Spanish, French, and Danis,) with none of them being an Asian language. In a similar manner, Teladoc’s top competitor in the telepsychiatry space, BetterHelp, only listed a total of 3 Asian languages, including Mandarin, Japanese, and Malaysian. However, this is still a short list considering they have over 20 languages available. The shortage of available physicians that speak multiple languages is concerning, as it could be difficult for the Asian American community to relate with. There are limited mental health resources that cater to their likely cultural needs, further exacerbating the structural racism and institutional barriers to appropriate care. It is important to note that these companies do provide interpreters to comply with the nondiscrimination and language assistance federal law. However, interactions with an interpreter are not only more time-consuming but also less personal than talking directly with a physician. Psychiatry is the field that emphasizes interpersonal relationships. The trust between a physician and the patient is critical in developing patient rapport to guide in better understanding the clinical picture and treating the patient appropriately. The language barrier creates an additional barrier between the physician and patient. Because Asian Americans are one of the largest growing patient population bases, these telehealth companies have much to gain by catering to the Asian American market. Without providing adequate access to bilingual and bicultural physicians, the current system will only further exacerbate the growing disparity. The healthcare community and telehealth companies need to recognize that the Asian American population is a severely underserved population in mental health and has much to gain from telepsychiatry. The lack of language is one of many reasons why there is a disparity for Asian Americans in the mental health space.

Keywords: telemedicine, psychiatry, Asian American, disparity

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Authors: Ekaterina Lukianchenko

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The present article addresses the nuances of teaching English vocabulary to Russian-speaking students. The experiment involving 39 participants aged 17 to 21 proves that the key to understanding spoken coinages is not only the knowledge of their constituents, but rather the understanding of the context and co-text. The volunteers who took part knew the constituents, but did not know the meaning of the words. The assumption of the authors consists in the fact that the structure of the concept has a direct relation with the form of the particular vocabulary unit, but its form is secondary to its meaning, if the word is a spoken coinage, which is partly proved by the fact that in modern slang words have multiple meanings, as well as one notion can have various embodiments that have virtually nothing in common. The choice of vocabulary items that youngsters use is not exactly arbitrary, but, even if complex nominals are taken into consideration, whose meaning seems clear, as it looks like a sum of their constituents’ meanings, they are still impossible to understand without any context or co-text, as a lot of them are idiomatic, non-transparent. It is further explained what methods might be effective in teaching students how to deal with new words they encounter in real-life situations and how student’s knowledge of vocabulary might be enhanced.

Keywords: spoken language, cognitive linguistics, complex nominals, nominals with the incorporated object, concept, EFL, communicative language teaching

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Authors: Mary Titilayo Olowe

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The controversies that trailed the political campaign and eventual choice of Donald Trump as the American president is so great that expectations are high as to what the content of his inaugural speech will portray. Given the fact that language is a dynamic vehicle of expressing intentions, the speech needs to be objectively assessed so as to access its content in the manner intended through the three strands of meaning postulated by the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG): the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. The focus of this paper, however, is on the interpersonal meaning which deals with how language exhibits social roles and relationship. This paper, therefore, attempts to analyse President Donald Trump’s inaugural speech to elicit interpersonal meaning in it. The analysis is done from the perspective of mood and modality which are housed in SFG. Results of the mood choice which is basically declarative, reveal an information-centered speech while the high option for the modal verb operator ‘will’ shows president Donald Trump’s ability to establish an equal and reliant relationship with his audience, i.e., the Americans. In conclusion, the appeal of the speech to different levels of Interpersonal meaning is largely responsible for its overall effectiveness. One can, therefore, understand the reason for the massive reaction it generates at the center of global discourse.

Keywords: interpersonal, modality, mood, systemic functional grammar

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Authors: Patsy Tan, Dana Baltutis

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This presentation demonstrates the effectiveness of music therapy in co-treatment with speech pathology and occupational therapy as an innovative way when working with children and adolescents with complex individual differences to facilitate communication, emotional, motor and social skills development. Each child with special needs and their carer has an individual profile which encompasses their visual-spatial, auditory, language, learning, mental health, family dynamic, sensory-motor, motor planning and sequencing profiles. The most common issues among children with special needs, especially those diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, are in the areas of regulation, communication, and social-emotional development. The ability of children living with challenges to communicate and use language and understand verbal and non-verbal information, as well as move their bodies to explore and interact with their environments in social situations, depends on the children being regulated both internally and externally and trusting their communication partners and understanding what is happening in the moment. For carers, it is about understanding the tempo, rhythm, pacing, and timing of their own individual profile, as well as the profile of the child they are interacting with, and how these can sync together. In this study, music therapy is used in co-treatment sessions with a speech pathologist and/or an occupational therapist using the DIRFloortime approach to facilitate the regulation, attention, engagement, reciprocity and social-emotional capacities of children presenting with complex individual differences. Documented changes in 10 domains of children’s development over a 12-month period using the Individual Music Therapy Assessment Profile (IMTAP) were observed. Children were assessed biannually, and results show significant improvements in the social-emotional, musicality and receptive language domains indicating that co-treatment with a music therapist using the DIRFloortime framework is highly effective. This presentation will highlight strategies that facilitate regulation, social-emotional and communication development for children and adolescents with complex individual profiles.

Keywords: communication, shared attention, regulation, social emotional

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Authors: Layla Albdr

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Saudi Arabia instituted the policy of Sensitizing and Training Stakeholders for E-learning and witnessed wide adoption in many institutions. However, it is at the infancy stage and needs time to develop to mirror the US and UK. The majority of the higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia have adopted E-learning as an alternative to traditional methods to advance education. Conversely, effective implementation of the policy of sensitization and training of stakeholders for E-learning implementation has not been attained because of various challenges. The objectives included determining the challenges and opportunities of the E-learning policy of sensitization and training of stakeholders in Saudi Arabia's higher education and examining if sensitization and training of stakeholder's policy will help promote the implementation of E-learning in institutions. The study employed a descriptive research design based on qualitative analysis. The researcher recruited 295 students and 60 academic staff from four Saudi Arabian universities to participate in the study. An online questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data was then analyzed and reported both quantitatively and qualitatively. The analysis provided an in-depth understanding of the opportunities and challenges of E-learning policy in Saudi Arabian universities. The main challenges identified as internal challenges were the lack of educators’ interest in adopting the policy, and external challenges entailed lack of ICT infrastructure and Internet connectivity. The study recommends encouraging, sensitizing, and training all stakeholders to address these challenges and adopt the policy.

Keywords: e-learning, educational policy, Saudi Arabia, policy of sensitization and training

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Authors: Yusra Ibrahim

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Parental involvement in their children’s education and behavioral modification is important. This article provides a policy analysis that describes laws and public education regulations concerning justice-involved youth and youth at risk of delinquency in the United Arab Emirates. The article aims to clarify the UAE laws for parents and guardians regarding their involvement in addressing school violations and crimes committed by their children, particularly those with emotional and behavioral disorders, youths at risk for delinquency, and justice-involved youths. The article concludes with implications for parents, policymakers, and educators and suggests ways to improve services and support for these parents and their youth.

Keywords: justice-involved youth, parents, incarceration, incarcerated youth, United Arab Emirates.

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Authors: Alemayehu Belay Emagnaw

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This study was conducted to investigate the relationship of mother and father involvement with students’ school performance and the effect of selected family demographic variables (mother and father education, family structure and sex of students) to the involvement of mothers and fathers in their children’s school performance. In addition, this study attempted to differentiate the level of involvement of mothers’ and fathers’ in their children’s school performance. The research was conducted in Bahirdar City, Ethiopia. A total of 175 students (boys were 85 and girls were 90) of grade 7th and 8th private primary schools were selected as respondents using stratified random sampling technique. The data were collected using a questionnaire. Analysis of the data showed that fathers and mothers have significant involvement in their children’s school performance. A significant difference was also found between mothers and fathers involvement in their children’s school performance. Mothers were better involved in their children school performance than fathers. The analysis of inter-correlation between variables showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between mother and father education, mother and father involvement, and school performance whereas, family structure and sex of the child had no significant relationship with school performance.

Keywords: family structure, parental education, parental involvement, school performance

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Authors: Ali Maji

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Highway development is an important factor for economic growth and development in both developed and developing countries. In Nigeria about two-third of transportation of goods and persons are done through highway network. It was this that made highway investment to enjoy position of relative high priority on the list of government expenditure programmes in Nigeria today. The paper noted that despite expansion of public investment in highway construction and maintenance of them, road traffic accident is increasing rate. This has acted as a drain of human capital which is a key to economic growth and development in Nigeria. In order to avoid this, the paper recommend introduction of Highway Safety Education (HSE) in Nigerian’s education system and investment in train transportation among other as a sure measure for curtailing highway accident.

Keywords: accident rate, high way development, human capital, national development

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Authors: Marlin Killen

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The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) describes academic freedom as essential to the purposes of research and teaching. The importance of academic freedom as a bedrock foundation that supports the work of the professoriate cannot be overstated, and there have been innumerable challenges that have attempted to curtail it. These challenges come from a variety of sources that span legal, ethical, cultural, institutional, and professional perspective and are amplified by social media, traditional media, and political action efforts. Because of these challenges, the development of a comprehensive institutional policy on academic freedom that addresses the principles, practices, and appropriate responses to modern challenges can be a daunting task. This presentation will focus on a case study of a university’s effort to develop an updated, evolving policy on academic freedom that provides a framework and remedies for contemporary challenges to this critical function in higher education.

Keywords: academic freedom, academic freedom policy, higher education policy

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Authors: Meilee Shen

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Buddhist nuns in Taiwan have shouldered various responsibilities in educational, cultural, economic, and social aspects that transforms and transcends Chinese Buddhism to a higher level in Taiwan and overseas. In the recent years, Nuns in Taiwan have formed various associations to reach their goals and satisfy their needs. This research will focus on the following: 1. How to distinguish a Buddhist organization from temple? 2. Whether the forming of female Buddhist organizations reveals religious purpose or gender conflict in Buddhism? 3. How can nuns in Taiwan be unified together to establish their identification? This paper will mainly study on the Chinese Buddhist Bhikkhuni Association (CBBA) because they have gained allies together to work for religious causes and social needs since 1996. However, with a mission to promote female practitioners’ role in Buddhist circle, CBBA did not contribute much to the gender issue in Buddhism. The research found that CBBA did not achieve their goal to unite nuns in Taiwan because they failed to support nuns' education and did not recruit young and highly educated ones as CBBA's faculties. In conclusion, the research suggests i) to connect with other Buddhist organizations in order to achieve the dream of unity, ii) to fill the generation gap by overturn hierarchical system in Buddhist community and create a new environment for new generation to grow, iii) to shift financial contribution from social charity to nuns’ education to promote female role in Buddhism in the future.

Keywords: Bhikkhuni in Taiwan, Bhikkhuni population and education, Buddhism in Taiwan, Chinese Buddhist Bhikkhuni Association

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Authors: Mahalingam Palaniandi

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Higher education plays vital role in the nation building process for a country and the rest of world. The higher education sector develops the change-agents for the various fields which will help the human-kind wheel to run further. Conventional and traditional class-room based learning and teaching was followed in many decades which is one-to-one and one-to-many. In a way, these are simplest form of learners to be assembled in a class room wherein the teacher used the blackboard to demonstrate the theory and laboratories used for practical. As the technology evolved tremendously for the last 40 years, the teaching and learning environment changed slowly, wherein, the learning community will be anywhere in the world and teacher deliver the content through internet based tools such as video conferencing, web based conferencing tools or E-learning platforms such as Blackboard or noodle. Present day, the mobile technologies plays an important tool to deliver the teaching content on-the-go. Both PC based and mobile based learning technology brought the learning and teaching community together in various aspects. However, as the learning technology also brought various hurdles for learning processes such as plagiarism and not using the reference books entirely as most of the students wants the information instantaneously using internet without actually going to the library to take the notes from the millions of the books which are not available online as e-books which result lack of fundamental knowledge of the concepts complex theories. However, technology is inseparable in human life, now-a-days and every part of it contains piece of information technology right from computers to home appliances. To make use of the IT based learning and teaching at most efficiency, we should have a proper framework and recommendations laid to the learning community in order to derive the maximum efficiency from the IT based teaching and leaning. This paper discusses various IT based tools available for the learning community, efficiency from its usage and recommendations for the suitable framework that needs to be implemented at higher education institutions which makes the learners stronger in both theory as well as real-time knowledge of their studies that is going to be used in their future for the better world.

Keywords: higher education, e-learning, teaching learning, eLearning tools

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Authors: Marndarath Suksanga

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The purposes and policies applied to sabbatical leave, along with the cost of using sabbatical leave. The potential benefits of the use of sabbatical leave to enhance organizational commitment are then examined. The focuses on the role of the sabbatical leave in the development, satisfaction, and productivity of faculty in institutions. An examination of the origin, definition, purposes, and outcomes of sabbatical leaves reviewed in the literature clarifies the role and benefits of the sabbatical leave. The result of this review can be used to determine the need for further study of how sabbatical leave might be used in higher education in universities level to the benefit of the faculty, students and organizations. The result of this review can be used to determine the need for further study of how sabbatical leave might be used in professional-technical and community colleges to the benefit of the faculty, students and organizations.

Keywords: return on investment, ROI, sabbatical leave, higher education

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Authors: J. Fox, J. Randhawa, M. Chan, L. Campbell, A. Weakely, D. J. Harvey, S. Tomaszewski Farias

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Early identification of individuals at risk for conversion to dementia provides an opportunity for preventative treatment. Many older adults (30-60%) report specific subjective cognitive decline (SCD); however, previous research is inconsistent in terms of what types of complaints predict future cognitive decline. The purpose of this study is to identify which specific complaints from the Everyday Cognition Scales (ECog) scales, a measure of self-reported concerns for everyday abilities across six cognitive domains, are associated with: 1) conversion from a clinical diagnosis of normal to either MCI or dementia (categorical variable) and 2) progressive cognitive decline in memory and executive function (continuous variables). 415 cognitively normal older adults were monitored annually for an average of 5 years. Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess associations between self-reported ECog items and progression to impairment (MCI or dementia). A total of 114 individuals progressed to impairment; the mean time to progression was 4.9 years (SD=3.4 years, range=0.8-13.8). Follow-up models were run controlling for depression. A subset of individuals (n=352) underwent repeat cognitive assessments for an average of 5.3 years. For those individuals, mixed effects models with random intercepts and slopes were used to assess associations between ECog items and change in neuropsychological measures of episodic memory or executive function. Prior to controlling for depression, subjective concerns on five of the eight Everyday Memory items, three of the nine Everyday Language items, one of the seven Everyday Visuospatial items, two of the five Everyday Planning items, and one of the six Everyday Organization items were associated with subsequent diagnostic conversion (HR=1.25 to 1.59, p=0.003 to 0.03). However, after controlling for depression, only two specific complaints of remembering appointments, meetings, and engagements and understanding spoken directions and instructions were associated with subsequent diagnostic conversion. Episodic memory in individuals reporting no concern on ECog items did not significantly change over time (p>0.4). More complaints on seven of the eight Everyday Memory items, three of the nine Everyday Language items, and three of the seven Everyday Visuospatial items were associated with a decline in episodic memory (Interaction estimate=-0.055 to 0.001, p=0.003 to 0.04). Executive function in those reporting no concern on ECog items declined slightly (p <0.001 to 0.06). More complaints on three of the eight Everyday Memory items and three of the nine Everyday Language items were associated with a decline in executive function (Interaction estimate=-0.021 to -0.012, p=0.002 to 0.04). These findings suggest that specific complaints across several cognitive domains are associated with diagnostic conversion. Specific complaints in the domains of Everyday Memory and Language are associated with a decline in both episodic memory and executive function. Increased monitoring and treatment of individuals with these specific SCD may be warranted.

Keywords: alzheimer’s disease, dementia, memory complaints, mild cognitive impairment, risk factors, subjective cognitive decline

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Authors: Shivam Dubey, Vinit Srivastava, Abhay Singh Thakur, Rahul Vaish

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The presence of organic dyes in water is a critical issue that poses a significant threat to the environment and human health. We have investigated the use of corona discharge as a potential method for degrading organic dyes in water. Methylene Blue dye was exposed to corona discharge, and its photo-absorbance was measured over time to determine the extent of degradation. The results depicted a decreased absorbance for the dye and the loss of the characteristic colour of methylene blue. The effects of various parameters, including current, voltage, gas phase, salinity, and electrode spacing, on the reaction rates, were investigated. The highest reaction rates were observed at the highest current and voltage (up to 10kV), lowest salinity, smallest electrode spacing, and an environment containing enhanced levels of oxygen. These findings have possible applications for science education curriculum. By investigating the use of corona discharge for destroying organic dyes, we can provide students with a practical application of scientific principles that they can apply to real-world problems. This research can demonstrate the importance of understanding the chemical and physical properties of organic dyes and the effects of corona discharge on their degradation and provide a holistic understanding of the applications of scientific research. Moreover, our study also emphasizes the importance of considering the various parameters that can affect reaction rates. By investigating the effects of current, voltage, matter phase, salinity, and electrode spacing, we can provide students with an opportunity to learn about the importance of experimental design and how to evade constraints that can limit meaningful results. In conclusion, this study has the potential to provide valuable insights into the use of corona discharge for destroying organic dyes in water and has significant implications for science education. By highlighting the practical applications of scientific principles, experimental design, and the importance of considering various parameters, this research can help students develop critical thinking skills and prepare them for future careers in science and engineering.

Keywords: dye degradation, corona discharge, science education, hands-on learning, chemical education

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Authors: Thaiurie Govender, Shannon Verne

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution has ushered in an era where technology significantly impacts various aspects of life, including higher education. Blended learning, which combines synchronous and asynchronous learning, has gained popularity as a pedagogical approach. However, its effective implementation is a challenge, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and technological obstacles faced in South Africa. This study focused on lecturers' teaching and learning practices to implement blended learning, aiming to understand the teaching and learning strategies used with the integration of digital tools to facilitate the blended learning approach within a private higher educational institution in South Africa. Using heutagogy and constructivism theoretical frameworks, the study aimed to uncover insights into the lecturer’s teaching and learning practices to overcome challenges in designing and facilitating blended learning modules. Through a qualitative analysis, the themes of student engagement, teaching and learning strategies, digital tools, and feedback emerged, highlighting the complexities and opportunities in a blended learning classroom. The findings emphasize the importance of tailoring methods to students' needs and subject matter, aligning with constructivist principles. Recommendations include promoting professional development opportunities, addressing infrastructure issues, and fostering a supportive learning environment.

Keywords: blended learning, digital tools, higher education, teaching strategies

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Authors: Yogesh Kumar Tiwari

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Chhattisgarh has realized the fundamental role of information and communication technology in the globalized world where knowledge is at the top for the growth and intellectual development. They are spreading so widely that one feels lagging behind if not using them. The influence of these radiating and technological tools has encompassed all aspects of the educational, business, and economic sectors of our world. Undeniably the computer has not only established itself globally in all walks of life but has acquired a fundamental role of paramount importance in the educational process also. This role is getting all pervading and more powerful as computers are being manufactured to be cheaper, smaller in size, adaptable and easy to handle. Computers are becoming indispensable to teachers because of their enormous capabilities and extensive competence. This study aims at observing the effect of using computer based software program of English language on the achievement of undergraduate level students studying in tribal area like Sarguja Division, Chhattisgarh, India. To testify the effect of an innovative teaching in the graduate classroom in tribal area 50 students were randomly selected and separated into two groups. The first group of 25 students were taught English grammar i.e., passive voice/narration, through traditional method using chalk and blackboard asking some formal questions. The second group, the experimental one, was taught English grammar i.e., passive voice/narration, using computer, projector with power point presentation of grammatical items. The statistical analysis was done on the students’ learning capacities and achievement. The result was extremely mesmerizing not only for the teacher but for taught also. The process of the recapitulation demonstrated that the students of experimental group responded the answers of the questions enthusiastically with innovative sense of learning. In light of the findings of the study, it was recommended that teachers and professors of English ought to use self-made instructional program in their teaching process particularly in tribal areas.

Keywords: achievement computer assisted language learning, use of instructional program

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Authors: Jean Ware, Susan W. Jones

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Background: The benefits of grammar instruction in the teaching of writing is contested in most English speaking countries. A majority of Anglophone countries abandoned the teaching of grammar in the 1950s based on the conclusions that it had no positive impact on learners’ development of reading, writing, and language. Although the decontextualised teaching of grammar is not helpful in improving writing, a curriculum with a focus on grammar in an embedded and meaningful way can help learners develop their understanding of the mechanisms of language. Although British learners are generally not taught grammar rules explicitly, learners in schools in France, the Netherlands, and Germany are taught explicitly about the structure of their own language. Exposing learners to grammatical analysis can help them develop their understanding of language. Indeed, if learners are taught that each part of speech has an identified role in the sentence. This means that rather than have to memorise lists of words or spelling patterns, they can focus on determining each word or phrase’s task in the sentence. These processes of categorisation and deduction are higher order thinking skills. When considering definitions of dyslexia available in Great Britain, the explicit teaching of grammar in context could help learners with persistent literacy difficulties. Indeed, learners with dyslexia often develop strengths in problem solving; the teaching of grammar could, therefore, help them develop their understanding of language by using analytical and logical thinking. Aims: This study aims at gaining a further understanding of how the explicit teaching of grammar in context can benefit learners with persistent literacy difficulties. The project is designed to identify ways of adapting existing grammar focussed teaching materials so that learners with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia can use them to further develop their writing skills. It intends to improve educational practice through action, analysis and reflection. Research Design/Methods: The project, therefore, uses an action research design and multiple sources of evidence. The data collection tools used were standardised test data, teacher assessment data, semi-structured interviews, learners’ before and after attempts at a writing task at the beginning and end of the cycle, documentary data and lesson observation carried out by a specialist teacher. Existing teaching materials were adapted for use with five Year 9 learners who had experienced persistent literacy difficulties from primary school onwards. The initial adaptations included reducing the amount of content to be taught in each lesson, and pre teaching some of the metalanguage needed. Findings: Learners’ before and after attempts at the writing task were scored by a colleague who did not know the order of the attempts. All five learners’ scores were higher on the second writing task. Learners reported that they had enjoyed the teaching approach. They also made suggestions to be included in the second cycle, as did the colleague who carried out observations. Conclusions: Although this is a very small exploratory study, these results suggest that adapting grammar focused teaching materials shows promise for helping learners with persistent literacy difficulties develop their writing skills.

Keywords: explicit teaching of grammar in context, literacy acquisition, persistent literacy difficulties, writing skills

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Authors: Kate Barnett-Richards, Marie Sams

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As the need for integration between students and industry grows, classroom practitioners must find ways of engaging students whilst also involving industry professionals to help shape the changing nature of university level education. As part of a project funded by the Disruptive Media Learning Lab at Coventry University, traditional case study based seminars on two modules were replaced by interactive live cases. Utilising Google+ as a social media platform allowed students and industry professional to come together and share ideas on a range of current issues. As technology becomes an ever increasingly important part of the higher education landscape, classroom practitioners need to adapt and find ways of utilising technological tools which can enhance the overall classroom experience. Given that many of these innovations come from the individuals involved in delivering classroom based sessions it is vital to share ideas, experiences and best practices so as to allow and encourage others to use the numerous free tools and platforms available. This poster presents the reflections, challenges, and problems faced by education practitioners when engaging students with industry partners in live case study discussions via Google+ within a classroom setting. It is expected that this poster will be of interest to a number of academics and teaching fellows who may be considering utilising social media tools to connect their students with industry.

Keywords: case study, Google+, practitioner, reflections.

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Authors: Sulaiman Kassim Ibrahim

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Human Resource is one of the most important elements in any country. They are very important in actualizing the potential of every sector in the country, i.e Agric, Education, Finance, Judiciary and all formal and informal sectors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the loss of human resource in Nigeria through street begging. The study used intensive literature review. Finding from the review indicate that a significant number of human resource are into street begging in the country undeveloped and untapped. The paper recommend that policy should be initiated to discourage street begging, develop this resource through education and empowerment, stop rural-urban migration by providing infrastructure in the rural areas and abolish informal (Almajiri or beggars school) and transform it into formal school.

Keywords: human resource, street begging, Nigeria, Almajiri

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Authors: Karen Jacob

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Over the last decades, there has been a rise in the use of CLIL (content and language integrated learning) methodology as a way of reinforcing FL (foreign language) acquisition. CLIL techniques have also been transferred to the formal instruction-based FL classroom where through content-based lessons and project work it can very often say that teachers are ‘clilling’ in the FL classroom. When it comes to motivating students to acquire an FL, we have to take into account that English is not your run-of-the-mill FL: English is an international language (EIL). Consequently, this means that EFL students should be able to use English as an international medium of communication. This leads to the assumption that along with FL competence, speakers of EIL will need to become competent international citizens with knowledge of other societies, both contextually and geographically, and be flexible, open-minded, respectful and sensitive towards other world groups. Rather than ‘intercultural’ competence we should be referring to ‘transcultural’ competence. This paper reports the implementation of a content- and task-based approach to EFL teaching which was applied to two groups of 15 year-olds from two schools on the Spanish island of Mallorca during the school year 2015-2016. Students worked on three units of work that aimed at ‘internationalising’ the classroom by introducing topics that would encourage them to become transculturally aware of the world in which they live. In this paper we discuss the feedback given by the teachers and students on various aspects of the approach in order to answer the following research questions: 1) To what extent were the students motivated by the content and activities of the classes?; 2) Did this motivation have a positive effect on the students’ overall results for the subject; 3) Did the participants show any signs of becoming transculturally aware. Preliminary results from qualitative data show that the students enjoyed the move away from the more traditional EFL content and, as a result, they became more competent in speaking and writing. Students also appeared to become more knowledgeable and respectful towards the ‘other’. The EFL approach described in this paper takes a more qualitative approach to research by describing what is really going on in the EFL classroom and makes a conscious effort to provide real examples of not only the acquisition of linguistic competence but also the acquisition of other important communication skills that are of utmost importance in today's international arena.

Keywords: CLIL, content- and task-based learning, internationalisation, transcultural competence

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Authors: Shyamani Hettiarachchi, Thilini Lokubalasuriya, Shakeela Saleem, Dinusha Nonis, Isuru Dharmaratne, Lakshika Udugama

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Introduction: Late identification of language difficulties in children could result in long-term negative consequences for communication, literacy and self-esteem. This highlights the need for early identification and intervention for speech, language and communication difficulties. Speech and language therapy is a relatively new profession in Sri Lanka and at present, there are no formal standardized screening tools to assess language skills in Sinhala-speaking children. The development and validation of a short, accurate screening tool to enable the identification of children with syntactic difficulties in Sinhala is a current need. Aims: 1) To develop test items for a Sinhala Syntactic Structures (S3 Short Form) test on children aged between 3;0 to 5;0 years 2) To validate the test of Sinhala Syntactic Structures (S3 Short Form) on children aged between 3; 0 to 5; 0 years Methods: The Sinhala Syntactic Structures (S3 Short Form) was devised based on the Renfrew Action Picture Test. As Sinhala contains post-positions in contrast to English, the principles of the Renfrew Action Picture Test were followed to gain an information score and a grammar score but the test devised reflected the linguistic-specificity and complexity of Sinhala and the pictures were in keeping with the culture of the country. This included the dative case marker ‘to give something to her’ (/ejɑ:ʈə/ meaning ‘to her’), the instrumental case marker ‘to get something from’ (/ejɑ:gən/ meaning ‘from him’ or /gɑhən/ meaning ‘from the tree’), possessive noun (/ɑmmɑge:/ meaning ‘mother’s’ or /gɑhe:/ meaning ‘of the tree’ or /male:/ meaning ‘of the flower’) and plural markers (/bɑllɑ:/ bɑllo:/ meaning ‘dog/dogs’, /mɑlə/mɑl/ meaning ‘flower/flowers’, /gɑsə/gɑs/ meaning ‘tree/trees’ and /wɑlɑ:kulə/wɑlɑ:kulu/ meaning ‘cloud/clouds’). The picture targets included socio-culturally appropriate scenes of the Sri Lankan New Year celebration, elephant procession and the Buddhist ‘Wesak’ ceremony. The test was piloted with a group of 60 participants and necessary changes made. In phase 1, the test was administered to 100 Sinhala-speaking children aged between 3; 0 and 5; 0 years in one district. In this presentation on phase 2, the test was administered to another 100 Sinhala-speaking children aged between 3; 0 to 5; 0 in three districts. In phase 2, the selection of the test items was assessed via measures of content validity, test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability. The age of acquisition of each syntactic structure was determined using content and grammar scores which were statistically analysed using t-tests and one-way ANOVAs. Results: High percentage agreement was found on test-retest reliability on content validity and Pearson correlation measures and on inter-rater reliability. As predicted, there was a statistically significant influence of age on the production of syntactic structures at p<0.05. Conclusions: As the target test items included generated the information and the syntactic structures expected, the test could be used as a quick syntactic screening tool with preschool children.

Keywords: Sinhala, screening, syntax, language

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Authors: Anes Enakoa, Yawei Liang

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Question Answering (QA) system is one of the most important and demanding tasks in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP). In QA systems, the answer generation task generates a list of candidate answers to the user's question, in which only one answer is correct. Answer selection is one of the main components of the QA, which is concerned with selecting the best answer choice from the candidate answers suggested by the system. However, the selection process can be very challenging especially in Arabic due to its particularities. To address this challenge, an approach is proposed to answer questions with multiple answer choices for Arabic QA systems based on Textual Entailment (TE) recognition. The developed approach employs a Support Vector Machine that considers lexical, semantic and syntactic features in order to recognize the entailment between the generated hypotheses (H) and the text (T). A set of experiments has been conducted for performance evaluation and the overall performance of the proposed method reached an accuracy of 67.5% with C@1 score of 80.46%. The obtained results are promising and demonstrate that the proposed method is effective for TE recognition task.

Keywords: information retrieval, machine learning, natural language processing, question answering, textual entailment

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Authors: E. K. Soyele

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This study is on capacity building and motivation as determinants of productivity among library personnel in colleges of education in South West, Nigeria. This study made use of a descriptive research design of survey type. A total enumeration sampling technique was used for the selected sample. The research sample consisted of 40 library personnel. The instrument used for the study was a structured questionnaire divided into four parts. Statistics data analysis used were descriptive statistics with frequencies, percentages, and regression statistics analysis. Findings from this study revealed that capacity building and motivation have positive impact on library personnel productivity with their percentages greater than 50% acceptance level. A test of null hypotheses at P < 0.05 significant level was tested to see the significance between capacity building and productivity, which was positive at P < 0.05 significant level. This implies that capacity building and motivation significantly determine productivity among library personnel in selected college libraries in Nigeria. The study concluded that there is need for institutions to equip their library personnel via training programmes, in-service, digital training, ICT training, seminars, and conferences, etc. Incentives should be provided to motivate personnel for high productivity. The study, therefore, recommends that government, institutions and library management should fund college libraries adequately so as to enhance capacity building, staff commitment and training for further education

Keywords: capacity building, library personnel, motivation, productivity

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Authors: Amir Zand-Moghadam, Mahnaz Alizadeh

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The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of teacher-scaffolding versus peer-scaffolding on EFL learners’ metapragmatic awareness in the paradigm of task-based language teaching (TBLT). To this end, a number of dialogic information-gap tasks requiring two-way interactant relationship were designed for the five speech acts of request, refusal, apology, suggestion, and compliment following Ellis’s (2003) model. Then, 48 intermediate EFL learners were randomly selected, homogenized, and assigned to two groups: 26 participants in the teacher-scaffolding group (Group One) and 22 in the peer-scaffolding group (Group Two). While going through the three phases of pre-task, while-task, and post-task, the participants in the first group completed the designed tasks by the teacher’s interaction, scaffolding, and feedback. On the other hand, the participants in the second group were required to complete the tasks in expert-novice pairs through peer scaffolding in all the three phases of a task-based syllabus. The findings revealed that the participants in the teacher-scaffolding group developed their L2 metapragmatic awareness more than the peer-scaffolding group. Thus, it can be concluded that teacher-scaffolding is more effective than peer scaffolding in developing metapragmatic awareness among EFL learners. It can also be claimed that the use of tasks can be more influential when they are accompanied by teacher-scaffolding. The findings of the present study have implications for language teachers and researchers.

Keywords: ILP, metapragmatic awareness, scaffolding, task-based instruction

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Authors: Shara Toibayeva, Irbulat Utepbergenov, Lyazzat Issabekova, Aidana Bodesova

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The article discusses the importance of quality assessment as a strategic tool in business and emphasizes the significance of the effectiveness of quality management systems (QMS) for enterprises. The evaluation of these systems takes into account the specificity of quality indicators, the multilevel nature of the system, and the need for optimal selection of the number of indicators and evaluation of the system state, which is critical for making rational management decisions. Methods and models of automated enterprise quality management are proposed, including an intelligent automated quality management system integrated with the Management Information and Control System. These systems make it possible to automate the implementation and support of QMS, increasing the validity, efficiency, and effectiveness of management decisions by automating the functions performed by decision makers and personnel. The paper also emphasizes the use of recurrent neural networks to improve automated quality management. Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are used to analyze and process sequences of data, which is particularly useful in the context of document quality assessment and non-conformance detection in quality management systems. These networks are able to account for temporal dependencies and complex relationships between different data elements, which improves the accuracy and efficiency of automated decisions. The project was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan under the Zhas Galym project No. AR 13268939, dedicated to research and development of digital technologies to ensure consistency of QMS regulatory documents.

Keywords: automated control system, quality management, document structure, formal language

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