Search results for: task based language teaching
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 32423

Search results for: task based language teaching

31913 Learners’ Perceptions of Tertiary Level Teachers’ Code Switching: A Vietnamese Perspective

Authors: Hoa Pham

Abstract:

The literature on language teaching and second language acquisition has been largely driven by monolingual ideology with a common assumption that a second language (L2) is best taught and learned in the L2 only. The current study challenges this assumption by reporting learners' positive perceptions of tertiary level teachers' code switching practices in Vietnam. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of code switching practices in language classrooms from a learners' perspective. Data were collected from student participants who were working towards a Bachelor degree in English within the English for Business Communication stream through the use of focus group interviews. The literature has documented that this method of interviewing has a number of distinct advantages over individual student interviews. For instance, group interactions generated by focus groups create a more natural environment than that of an individual interview because they include a range of communicative processes in which each individual may influence or be influenced by others - as they are in their real life. The process of interaction provides the opportunity to obtain the meanings and answers to a problem that are "socially constructed rather than individually created" leading to the capture of real-life data. The distinct feature of group interaction offered by this technique makes it a powerful means of obtaining deeper and richer data than those from individual interviews. The data generated through this study were analysed using a constant comparative approach. Overall, the students expressed positive views of this practice indicating that it is a useful teaching strategy. Teacher code switching was seen as a learning resource and a source supporting language output. This practice was perceived to promote student comprehension and to aid the learning of content and target language knowledge. This practice was also believed to scaffold the students' language production in different contexts. However, the students indicated their preference for teacher code switching to be constrained, as extensive use was believed to negatively impact on their L2 learning and trigger cognitive reliance on the L1 for L2 learning. The students also perceived that when the L1 was used to a great extent, their ability to develop as autonomous learners was negatively impacted. This study found that teacher code switching was supported in certain contexts by learners, thus suggesting that there is a need for the widespread assumption about the monolingual teaching approach to be re-considered.

Keywords: codeswitching, L1 use, L2 teaching, learners’ perception

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31912 Teaching How to Speak ‘Correct’ English in No Time: An Assessment of the ‘Success’ of Professor Higgins’ Motivation in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion

Authors: Armel Mbon

Abstract:

This paper examines the ‘success’ of George Bernard Shaw's main character Professor Higgins' motivation in teaching Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flower girl, how to speak 'correct' English in no time in Pygmalion. Notice should be given that Shaw in whose writings, language issues feature prominently, does not believe there is such a thing as perfectly correct English, but believes in the varieties of spoken English as a source of its richness. Indeed, along with his fellow phonetician Colonel Pickering, Henry Higgins succeeds in teaching Eliza that he first judges unfairly, the dialect of the upper classes and Received Pronunciation, to facilitate her social advancement. So, after six months of rigorous learning, Eliza's speech and manners are transformed, and she is able to pass herself off as a lady. Such is the success of Professor Higgins’ motivation in linguistically transforming his learner in record time. On the other side, his motivation is unsuccessful since, by the end of the play, he cannot have Eliza he believes he has shaped to his so-called good image, for wife. So, this paper aims to show, in support of the psychological approach, that in motivation, feelings, pride and prejudice cannot be combined, and that one has not to pre-judge someone’s attitude based purely on how well they speak English.

Keywords: teaching, speak, in no time, success

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31911 On or Off-Line: Dilemmas in Using Online Teaching-Learning in In-Service Teacher Education

Authors: Orly Sela

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The lecture discusses a Language Teaching program in a Teacher Education College in northern Israel. An on-line course was added to the program in order to keep on-campus attendance at a minimum, thus allowing the students to keep their full-time jobs in school. In addition, the use of educational technology to allow students to study anytime anywhere, in keeping with 21st-century innovative teaching-learning practices, was also an issue, as was the wish for this course to serve as a model which the students could then possibly use in their K-12 teaching. On the other hand, there were strong considerations against including an online course in the program. The students in the program were mostly Israeli-Arab married women with young children, living in a traditional society which places a strong emphasis on the place of the woman as a wife, mother, and home-maker. In addition, as teachers, they used much of their free time on school-related tasks. Having careers at the same time as studying was ground-breaking for these women, and using their time at home for studying rather than taking care of their families may have been simply too much to ask of them. At the end of the course, feedback was collected through an online questionnaire including both open and closed questions. The data collected shows that the students believed in online teaching-learning in principle, but had trouble implementing it in practice. This evidence raised the question of whether or not such a course should be included in a graduate program for mature, professional students, particular women with families living in a traditional society. This issue is not relevant to Israel alone, but also to academic institutions worldwide serving such populations. The lecture discusses this issue, sharing the researcher’s conclusions with the audience. Based on the evidence offered, it is the researcher’s conclusion that online education should, indeed, be offered to such audiences. However, the courses should be designed with the students’ special needs in mind, with emphasis placed on initial planning and course organization based on acknowledgment of the teaching context; modeling of online teaching/learning suited for in-service teacher education, and special attention paid to social-constructivist aspects of learning.

Keywords: course design, in-service teacher-education, mature students, online teaching/learning

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31910 Addressing Differentiation Using Mobile-Assisted Language Learning

Authors: Ajda Osifo, Fatma Elshafie

Abstract:

Mobile-assisted language learning favors social-constructivist and connectivist theories to learning and adaptive approaches to teaching. It offers many opportunities to differentiated instruction in meaningful ways as it enables learners to become more collaborative, engaged and independent through additional dimensions such as web-based media, virtual learning environments, online publishing to an imagined audience and digitally mediated communication. MALL applications can be a tool for the teacher to personalize and adjust instruction according to the learners’ needs and give continuous feedback to improve learning and performance in the process, which support differentiated instruction practices. This paper explores the utilization of Mobile Assisted Language Learning applications as a supporting tool for effective differentiation in the language classroom. It reports overall experience in terms of implementing MALL to shape and apply differentiated instruction and expand learning options. This session is structured in three main parts: first, a review of literature and effective practice of academically responsive instruction will be discussed. Second, samples of differentiated tasks, activities, projects and learner work will be demonstrated with relevant learning outcomes and learners’ survey results. Finally, project findings and conclusions will be given.

Keywords: academically responsive instruction, differentiation, mobile learning, mobile-assisted language learning

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31909 Diploma Students’ Perceptions Regarding the Effectiveness of Using an English-Speaking Practice Application on Their Primary Skills

Authors: Shatha Alkhalaf

Abstract:

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the English Speaking Practice App in improving the speaking skills of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. The participants were 44 diploma students at Qassim University in Saudi Arabia. They used the app for 30 minutes per week over a 12-week period. A survey questionnaire was used to measure their perceptions of the app's effectiveness, usability, and impact on motivation. The questionnaire showed high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.89). The findings suggest that the app was perceived positively by the participants in terms of its effectiveness in improving speaking skills, usability, and motivation. This research contributes to the field of language teaching by highlighting the potential of technology-enhanced language learning.

Keywords: second language, English, speaking, technology

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31908 ACO-TS: an ACO-based Algorithm for Optimizing Cloud Task Scheduling

Authors: Fahad Y. Al-dawish

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The current trend by a large number of organizations and individuals to use cloud computing. Many consider it a significant shift in the field of computing. Cloud computing are distributed and parallel systems consisting of a collection of interconnected physical and virtual machines. With increasing request and profit of cloud computing infrastructure, diverse computing processes can be executed on cloud environment. Many organizations and individuals around the world depend on the cloud computing environments infrastructure to carry their applications, platform, and infrastructure. One of the major and essential issues in this environment related to allocating incoming tasks to suitable virtual machine (cloud task scheduling). Cloud task scheduling is classified as optimization problem, and there are several meta-heuristic algorithms have been anticipated to solve and optimize this problem. Good task scheduler should execute its scheduling technique on altering environment and the types of incoming task set. In this research project a cloud task scheduling methodology based on ant colony optimization ACO algorithm, we call it ACO-TS Ant Colony Optimization for Task Scheduling has been proposed and compared with different scheduling algorithms (Random, First Come First Serve FCFS, and Fastest Processor to the Largest Task First FPLTF). Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is random optimization search method that will be used for assigning incoming tasks to available virtual machines VMs. The main role of proposed algorithm is to minimizing the makespan of certain tasks set and maximizing resource utilization by balance the load among virtual machines. The proposed scheduling algorithm was evaluated by using Cloudsim toolkit framework. Finally after analyzing and evaluating the performance of experimental results we find that the proposed algorithm ACO-TS perform better than Random, FCFS, and FPLTF algorithms in each of the makespaan and resource utilization.

Keywords: cloud Task scheduling, ant colony optimization (ACO), cloudsim, cloud computing

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31907 The Correlation between Users’ Star Rating and Usability on Mobile Applications

Authors: Abdulmohsen A. AlBesher, Richard T. Stone

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Star rating for mobile applications is a very useful way to differentiate between the best and worst rated applications. However, the question is whether the rating reflects the level of usability or not. The aim of this paper is to find out if the user’ star ratings on mobile apps correlate with the usability of those apps. Thus, we tested three mobile apps, which have different star ratings: low, medium, and high. Participating in the study, 15 mobile phone users were asked to do one single task for each of the three tested apps. After each task, the participant evaluated the app by answering a survey based on the System Usability Scale (SUS). The results found that there is no major correlation between the star rating and the usability. However, it was found that the task completion time and the numbers of errors that may happen while completing the task were significantly correlated to the usability.

Keywords: mobile applications, SUS, star rating, usability

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31906 Studying Second Language Learners' Language Behavior from Conversation Analysis Perspective

Authors: Yanyan Wang

Abstract:

This paper on second language teaching and learning uses conversation analysis (CA) approach and focuses on how second language learners of Chinese do repair when making clarification requests. In order to demonstrate their behavior in interaction, a comparison was made to study the differences between native speakers of Chinese with non-native speakers of Chinese. The significance of the research is to make second language teachers and learners aware of repair and how to seek clarification. Utilizing the methodology of CA, the research involved two sets of naturally occurring recordings, one of native speaker students and the other of non-native speaker students. Both sets of recording were telephone talks between students and teachers. There were 50 native speaker students and 50 non-native speaker students. From multiple listening to the recordings, the parts with repairs for clarification were selected for analysis which included the moments in the talk when students had problems in understanding or hearing the speaker and had to seek clarification. For example, ‘Sorry, I do not understand ‘and ‘Can you repeat the question? ‘were the parts as repair to make clarification requests. In the data, there were 43 such cases from native speaker students and 88 cases from non-native speaker students. The non-native speaker students were more likely to use repair to seek clarification. Analysis on how the students make clarification requests during their conversation was carried out by investigating how the students initiated problems and how the teachers repaired the problems. In CA term, it is called other-initiated self-repair (OISR), which refers to student-initiated teacher-repair in this research. The findings show that, in initiating repair, native speaker students pay more attention to mutual understanding (inter-subjectivity) while non-native speaker students, due to their lack of language proficiency, pay more attention to their status of knowledge (epistemic) switch. There are three major differences: 1, native Chinese students more often initiate closed-class OISR (seeking specific information in the request) such as repeating a word or phrases from the previous turn while non-native students more frequently initiate open-class OISR (not specifying clarification) such as ‘sorry, I don’t understand ‘. 2, native speakers’ clarification requests are treated by the teacher as understanding of the content while non-native learners’ clarification requests are treated by teacher as language proficiency problem. 3, native speakers don’t see repair as knowledge issue and there is no third position in the repair sequences to close repair while non-native learners take repair sequence as a time to adjust their knowledge. There is clear closing third position token such as ‘oh ‘ to close repair sequence so that the topic can go back. In conclusion, this paper uses conversation analysis approach to compare differences between native Chinese speakers and non-native Chinese learners in their ways of conducting repair when making clarification requests. The findings are useful in future Chinese language teaching and learning, especially in teaching pragmatics such as requests.

Keywords: conversation analysis (CA), clarification request, second language (L2), teaching implication

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31905 Effects of the Mathcing between Learning and Teaching Styles on Learning with Happiness of College Students

Authors: Tasanee Satthapong

Abstract:

The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between learning style preferences, teaching style preferences, and learning with happiness of college students who were majors in five different academic areas at the Suansunandha Rajabhat University in Thailand. The selected participants were 729 students 1st year-5th year in Faculty of Education from Thai teaching, early childhood education, math and science teaching, and English teaching majors. The research instruments are the Grasha and Riechmann learning and teaching styles survey and the students’ happiness in learning survey, based on learning with happiness theory initiated by the Office of the National Education Commission. The results of this study: 1) The most students’ learning styles were participant style, followed by collaborative style, and independent style 2) Most students’ happiness in learning in all subjects areas were at the moderate level: Early Childhood Education subject had the highest scores, while Math subject was at the least scores. 3) No different of student’s happiness in learning were found between students who has learning styles that match and not match to teachers’ teaching styles.

Keywords: learning style, teaching style, learning with happiness

Procedia PDF Downloads 675
31904 Efficiency of Information Technology Based Learning and Teaching in Higher Educations

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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31903 Insight-Based Evaluation of a Map-Based Dashboard

Authors: Anna Fredriksson Häägg, Charlotte Weil, Niklas Rönnberg

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Map-based dashboards are used for data exploration every day. The present study used an insight-based methodology for evaluating a map-based dashboard that presents research findings of water management and ecosystem services in the Amazon. In addition to analyzing the insights gained from using the dashboard, the evaluation method was compared to standardized questionnaires and task-based evaluations. The result suggests that the dashboard enabled the participants to gain domain-relevant, complex insights regarding the topic presented. Furthermore, the insight-based analysis highlighted unexpected insights and hypotheses regarding causes and potential adaptation strategies for remediation. Although time- and resource-consuming, the insight-based methodology was shown to have the potential of thoroughly analyzing how end users can utilize map-based dashboards for data exploration and decision making. Finally, the insight-based methodology is argued to evaluate tools in scenarios more similar to real-life usage compared to task-based evaluation methods.

Keywords: visual analytics, dashboard, insight-based evaluation, geographic visualization

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31902 Predominance of Teaching Models Used by Math Teachers in Secondary Education

Authors: Verónica Diaz Quezada

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This research examines the teaching models used by secondary math teachers when teaching logarithmic, quadratic and exponential functions. For this, descriptive case studies have been carried out on 5 secondary teachers. These teachers have been chosen from 3 scientific-humanistic and technical schools, in Chile. Data have been obtained through non-participant class observation and the application of a questionnaire and a rubric to teachers. According to the results, the didactic model that prevails is the one that starts with an interactive strategy, moves to a more content-based structure, and ends with a reinforcement stage. Nonetheless, there is always influence from teachers, their methods, and the group of students.

Keywords: teaching models, math teachers, functions, secondary education

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31901 A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis of Adjectival Collocation of the Word 'Education' in the American Context

Authors: Ngan Nguyen

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The study analyses adjectives collocating with the word ‘education’ in the American language of the Corpus of Global Web-based English using a combination of corpus linguistic and discourse analytical methods to examine not only language patterns but also social political ideologies around the topic. Significant conclusions are deduced: (1) there are a large number of adjectival collocates of the word education which have been identified and classified into four categories representing four different aspects of education: level, quality, forms and types of education; (2) education, as in combination with three first categories, carries the meaning as the act and process of teaching and learning while with the last category having the meaning of a particular kind of teaching or training; (3) higher education is the topic that gains most concerns from the American public; (4) five most significant ideologies are discovered from the corpus: higher education associates with financial affairs, higher education is an industry, monetary policy of the government on higher education, people require greater accessibility to higher education and people value higher education. The study contributes to the field of developing meanings of words through corpus analysis and the field of discourse analysis.

Keywords: adjectival collocation, American context, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, education

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31900 Adopting a Comparative Cultural Studies Approach to Teaching Writing in the Global Classroom

Authors: Madhura Bandyopadhyay

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Teaching writing within multicultural and multiethnic communities poses many unique challenges not the least of which is that of intercultural communication. When the writing is in English, pedagogical imperatives often encounter the universalizing tendencies of standardization of both language use and structural parameters which are often at odds with maintaining local practices which preserve cultural pluralism. English often becomes the contact zone within which individual identities of students play out against the standardization imperatives of the larger world. Writing classes can serve as places which become instruments of assimilation of ethnic minorities to a larger globalizing or nationalistic agenda. Hence, for those outside of the standard practices of writing English, adaptability towards a mastery of those practices valued as standard become the focus of teaching taking away from diversity of local English use and other modes of critical thinking. In a very multicultural and multiethnic context such as the US or Singapore, these dynamics become very important. This paper will argue that multiethnic writing classrooms can greatly benefit from taking up a cultural studies approach whereby the students’ lived environments and experiences are analyzed as cultural texts to produce writing. Such an approach eliminates limitations of using both literary texts as foci of discussion as in traditional approaches to teaching writing and the current trend in teaching composition without using texts at all. By bringing in students’ lived experiences into the classroom and analyzing them as cultural compositions stressing the ability to communicate across cultures, cultural competency is valued rather than adaptability while privileging pluralistic experiences as valuable even as universal shared experience are found. Specifically, while teaching writing in English in a multicultural classroom, a cultural studies approach makes both teacher and student aware of the diversity of the English language as it exists in our global context in the students’ experience while making space for diversity in critical thinking, structure and organization of writing effective in an intercultural context.

Keywords: English, multicultural, teaching, writing

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31899 A Comprehensive Model of Professional Ethics Based on the Teachings of the Holy Quran

Authors: Zahra Mohagheghian, Fatema Agharebparast

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Professional ethic is a subject that has been an issue today, so most of the businesses, including the teaching profession, understand the need and importance of it. So they need to develop a code of professional ethics for their own. In this regard, this study seeks to answer the question, with respect to the integrity of the Qur'an (Nahl / 89), is it possible to contemplate the divine teachers conduct to extract the divine pattern for teaching and training? In the code of conduct for divine teachers what are the most important moral obligations and duties of the teaching professionals? The results of this study show that the teaching of Khidr, according to the Quran’s verses, Abundant and subtle hints emphasized that it can be as comprehensive and divine pattern used in teaching and in the drafting of the charter of professional ethics of teachers used it. Also, the results show that in there have been many ethical principles in prophet Khidr’s teaching pattern.The most important ethical principles include: Student assessment, using objective and not subjective examples, assessment during teaching, flexibility, and others. According to each of these principles can help teachers achieve their educational goals and lead human being in their path toward spiritual evaluation.

Keywords: professional ethics, teaching-learning process, teacher, student, Quran

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31898 The English Classroom: Scope and Space for Motivation

Authors: Madhavi Godavarthy

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The globalized world has been witnessing the ubiquity of the English language and has made it mandatory that students be equipped with the required Communication and soft skills. For students and especially for students studying in technical streams, gaining command over the English language is only a part of the bigger challenges they will face in the future. Linguistic capabilities if blended with the right attitude and a positive personality would deliver better results in the present environment of the digitalized world. An English classroom has that ‘space’; a space if utilized well by the teacher can pay rich dividends. The prescribed syllabus for English in the process of adapting itself to the challenges of a more and more technical world has meted out an indifferent treatment in including ‘literary’ material in their curriculum. A debate has always existed regarding the same and diversified opinions have been given. When the student is motivated to reach Literature through intrinsic motivation, it may contribute to his/her personality-development. In the present paper, the element of focus is on the scope and space to motivate students by creating a specific space for herself/himself amidst the schedules of the teaching-learning processes by taking into consideration a few literary excerpts for the purpose.

Keywords: English language, teaching and learning process, reader response theory, intrinsic motivation, literary texts

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31897 Coping Strategies of Female English Teachers and Housewives to Face the Challenges Associated to the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

Authors: Lisseth Rojas Barreto, Carlos Muñoz Hernández

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The COVID-19 pandemic led to many abrupt changes, including a prolonged lockdown, which brought about work and personal challenges to the population worldwide. Among the most affected populations are women who are workers and housewives at the same time, and especially those who are also parenting. These women were faced with the challenge to perform their usual varied roles during the lockdown from the same physical space, which inevitably had strong repercussions for each of them. This paper will present some results of a research study whose main objective was to examine the possible effects that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown may have caused in the work, social, family, and personal environments of female English teachers who are also housewives and, by extension in the teaching and learning processes that they lead. Participants included five female English language teachers of a public foreign language school, they are all married, and two of them have children. Similarly, we examined some of the coping strategies these teachers used to tackle the pandemic-related challenges in their different roles, especially those used for their language teaching role; coping strategies are understood as a repertoire of behaviors in response to incidents that can be stressful for the subject, possible challenging events or situations that involve emotions with behaviors and decision-making of people which are used in order to find a meaning or positive result (Lazarus &Folkman, 1986) Following a qualitative-case study design, we gathered the data through a survey and a focus group interview with the participant teachers who work at a public language school in southern Colombia. Preliminary findings indicate that the circumstances that emerged as a result of the pandemic lockdown affected the participants in different ways, including financial, personal, family, health, and work-related issues. Among the strategies that participants found valuable to deal with the novel circumstances, we can highlight the reorganization of the household and work tasks and the increased awareness of time management for the household, work, and leisure. Additionally, we were able to evidence that the participants faced the circumstances with a positive view. Finally, in order to cope with their teaching duties, some participants acknowledged their lack of computer or technology literacy in order to deliver their classes online, which made them find support from their students or more knowledgeable peers to cope with it. Others indicated that they used strategies such as self-learning in order to get acquainted and be able to use the different technological tools and web-based platforms available.

Keywords: coping strategies, language teaching, female teachers, pandemic lockdown

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31896 Semantic Textual Similarity on Contracts: Exploring Multiple Negative Ranking Losses for Sentence Transformers

Authors: Yogendra Sisodia

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Researchers are becoming more interested in extracting useful information from legal documents thanks to the development of large-scale language models in natural language processing (NLP), and deep learning has accelerated the creation of powerful text mining models. Legal fields like contracts benefit greatly from semantic text search since it makes it quick and easy to find related clauses. After collecting sentence embeddings, it is relatively simple to locate sentences with a comparable meaning throughout the entire legal corpus. The author of this research investigated two pre-trained language models for this task: MiniLM and Roberta, and further fine-tuned them on Legal Contracts. The author used Multiple Negative Ranking Loss for the creation of sentence transformers. The fine-tuned language models and sentence transformers showed promising results.

Keywords: legal contracts, multiple negative ranking loss, natural language inference, sentence transformers, semantic textual similarity

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31895 The Relationship between Anxiety and Willingness to Communicate: The Indonesian EFL Context

Authors: Yana Shanti Manipuspika

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Anxiety has potential to negatively affect foreign language learning process. This feeling leads the learners hesitate to communicate. This present study aimed at investigating the relationship between students’ anxiety and willingness to communicate of Indonesian EFL learners. There were 67 participants in this study who were the English Department students of Vocational Program of University of Brawijaya, Malang. This study employed Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and the Willingness to Communicate (WTC) scale. The results of this study showed that the respondents had communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. This study also revealed that English Department students of Vocational Program University of Brawijaya had high level of anxiety and low level of willingness to communicate. The relationship between foreign language classroom anxiety and willingness to communicate was found to be sufficiently negative. It is suggested for the language teachers to identify the causes of students’ language anxiety and try to create cheerful and less stressful atmosphere in the classroom. It is also important to find a way to develop their teaching strategies to stimulate students’ willingness to communicate.

Keywords: English as a foreign language (EFL), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), vocational program, willingness to communicate (WTC)

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31894 What are Parents of Teacher Candidates’ Belief Towards Teaching as a Profession?

Authors: Chua Lee Chuan

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This study was conducted to explore parents’ beliefs towards the teaching profession. This survey was conducted on 51 parents of teacher candidates in a teacher training institute. A research instrument, using questionnaires, adapted from FIT-Choice scale developed by Richardson and Watt (2006) was used to collect data from the population. The findings showed that parents, in general, have positive attitudes towards the teaching profession. They perceived teaching as a career highly valued by the society. Though the teaching job was viewed as difficult and requiring high expertise, the salary received commensurate their hard work and heavy workload. In terms of gender, male and female parents did not differ in their beliefs about the teaching profession. However, results indicated that educational attainment and income level had significant effect on parents’ beliefs on teaching as a profession. Implications and recommendations in relation to the findings are also included.

Keywords: beliefs, teaching profession, parents, teacher candidates

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31893 Development of a French to Yorùbá Machine Translation System

Authors: Benjamen Nathaniel, Eludiora Safiriyu Ijiyemi, Egume Oneme Lucky

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A review on machine translation systems shows that a lot of computational artefacts has been carried out to translate written or spoken texts from a source language to Yorùbá language through Machine Translation systems. However, there are no work on French to Yorùbá language machine translation system; hence, the study investigated the process involved in the translation of French-to-Yorùbá language equivalent with the view to adopting a rule- based MT approach to build a Machine Translation framework from simple sentences administered through questionnaire. Articles and relevant textbooks were reviewed with key speakers of both languages interviewed to find out the processes involved in the translation of French language and their equivalent in Yorùbálanguage simple sentences using home domain terminologies. Achieving this, a model was formulated using phrase grammar structure, re-write rule, parse tree, automata theory- based techniques, designed and implemented respectively with unified modeling language (UML) and python programming language. Analysing the result, it was observed when carrying out the result that, the Machine Translation system performed 18.45% above Experimental Subject Respondent and 2.7% below Linguistics Expert when analysed with word orthography, sentence syntax and semantic correctness of the sentences. And, when compared with Google Machine Translation system, it was noticed that the developed system performed better on lexicons of the target language.

Keywords: machine translation (MT), rule-based, French language, Yoru`ba´ language

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31892 Teaching Legal English in Russia: Traditions and Problems

Authors: Irina A. Martynenko, Viktoriia V. Pikalova

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At the moment, there are more than a thousand law schools in Russia. The program of preparation in each of them without exception includes English language course. It is believed that lawyers in Russia are best trained at the MGIMO University, the All-Russian State University of Justice, Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Lomonosov Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, Diplomatic Academy of Russian Foreign Ministry and some others. Currently, the overwhelming majority of universities operate using the two-level system of education: bachelor's plus master's degree. Foreign languages are taught at both levels. The main example of consideration used throughout this paper is Kutafin Moscow State Law University being one of the best law schools in the country. The article examines traditions of teaching legal English in Russia and highlights problem arising in this process. The authors suggest ways of solving them in the scope of modern views and practice of teaching English for specific purposes.

Keywords: Kutafin Moscow State Law University, legal English, Russia, teaching

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31891 Towards an Indigenous Language Policy for National Integration

Authors: Odoh Dickson Akpegi

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The paper is about the need for an indigenous language in order to meaningfully harness both our human and material resources for the nation’s integration. It then examines the notty issue of the national language question and advocates a piece meal approach in solving the problem. This approach allows for the development and use of local languages in minority areas, especially in Benue State, as a way of preparing them for consideration as possible replacement for English language as Nigeria’s national or official language. Finally, an arrangement to follow to prepare the languages for such competition at the national level is presented.

Keywords: indigenous language, English language, official language, National integration

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31890 Multishape Task Scheduling Algorithms for Real Time Micro-Controller Based Application

Authors: Ankur Jain, W. Wilfred Godfrey

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Embedded systems are usually microcontroller-based systems that represent a class of reliable and dependable dedicated computer systems designed for specific purposes. Micro-controllers are used in most electronic devices in an endless variety of ways. Some micro-controller-based embedded systems are required to respond to external events in the shortest possible time and such systems are known as real-time embedded systems. So in multitasking system there is a need of task Scheduling,there are various scheduling algorithms like Fixed priority Scheduling(FPS),Earliest deadline first(EDF), Rate Monotonic(RM), Deadline Monotonic(DM),etc have been researched. In this Report various conventional algorithms have been reviewed and analyzed, these algorithms consists of single shape task, A new Multishape scheduling algorithms has been proposed and implemented and analyzed.

Keywords: dm, edf, embedded systems, fixed priority, microcontroller, rtos, rm, scheduling algorithms

Procedia PDF Downloads 393
31889 The Different Types of French Language in the Processes of Acquisition: Specifically about The Humor

Authors: Akbarnejad Neda

Abstract:

A foreign language acquisition occurs when we can tell a joke and understand it. Most jokes are told in slang and common language. In the process of foreign language acquisition, an autonomous learner try to learn the standard language. But there is a colossal divergence between the usage of the different types of language in society. Here, we investigate the french slang and common language and examine the accurate perception of their usage. We illuminate the slang language in the french literature that provide considerably different types of language for an autonomous learner. We provide furthermore evidence from the french novels that demonstrate properly the different types of language and give in one sentence its social meanings. For example, the famous Queneau expression « Doukipudonktant » present the impact of slang language in society. The characters in the novel transfer the slang and the common language and their accurate usages. We present that the language of the autonomous learner depends on the language of the text that is read. Because literature is a vehicle of the culture and the expression demonstrate their real significations and usage in the culture, slang and common language have a crucial role in the culture and all of them are manifested in the oral language.

Keywords: common language, french, humor, slang language

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31888 Using Music: An Effective Medium of Teaching Vocabulary in ESL Classroom

Authors: Takwa Jahan

Abstract:

Music can be used in ESL classroom to create a learning environment. As literature abounds with positive statements, music can be used as a vehicle for second language acquisition. Music can be applied as an instrument to help second language learners to acquire vocabulary, grammar, spelling and other four skills and to expand cultural knowledge. Vocabulary learning is perceived boring by learners. As listening to music and singing songs are enjoyable to students, it can be used effectively to acquire vocabulary in second language. This paper reports a study to find out how music exhilarates vocabulary acquisition as the learners stay relaxed and thus learning becomes more enjoyable. For conducting my research two groups of fifty students- music and non-music group were formed. Data were collected through class observation, test, questionnaires, and interview. The finding shows that music group acquired much amount of vocabulary than the non-music group. They enjoyed vocabulary learning activities based on listening songs.

Keywords: effective instrument, ESL classroom, music, relax environment, vocabulary learning

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31887 Internationalization and Multilingualism in Brazil: Possibilities of Content and Language Integrated Learning and Intercomprehension Approaches

Authors: Kyria Rebeca Finardi

Abstract:

The study discusses the role of foreign languages in general and of English in particular in the process of internationalization of higher education (IHE), defined as the intentional integration of an international, intercultural or global dimension in the purpose, function or offer of higher education. The study is bibliographical and offers a brief outline of the current political, economic and educational scenarios in Brazil, before discussing some possibilities and challenges for the development of multilingualism and IHE there. The theoretical background includes a review of Brazilian language and internationalization policies. The review and discussion concludes that the use of the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach and the Intercomprehension approach to foreign language teaching/learning are relevant alternatives to foster multilingualism in that context.

Keywords: Brazil, higher education, internationalization, multilingualism

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31886 Metaphors Underlying Idiomatic Expressions in Trilingual Perspective: Contributions to the Teaching of Lexicon and to Materials Development

Authors: Marilei Amadeu Sabino

Abstract:

Idiomatic expressions are linguistic phraseologisms present in natural languages. Known to be metaphorical linguistic combinations, a good majority of them provide elements that reveal important cultural aspects of their linguistic community through their metaphors. With the advent of Cognitive Linguistics (more specifically of Cognitive Semantics), the metaphor ceased to be related to poetic language and rhetorical embellishment and came to be seen as part of simple everyday language, reflecting the way human beings think, act and conceive reality, i. e., a fundamental mechanism of human conceptualizations of the world. In this sense, it came to be conceived as an inevitable mechanism for representing the nature of thought and language. The speakers, in conceptualizing reality, often use metaphorically parts of the body in expressions known as somatic. Several conceptual metaphors appear to be potentially universal or near-universal, because people across the world share certain bodily experiences. In these terms, many linguistic metaphors may be identical or very similar in several languages. These similarities, according to the Theory of Conceptual Metaphor, derive from universal aspects of the human body. Thus, this research aims to investigate the nature of some metaphors underlying somatic idiomatic expressions of Portuguese, Italian and English languages, establishing a pattern of similarities and differences among them from a trilingual perspective. The analysis shows that much of the studied expressions are really structurally, semantically and metaphorically identical or similar in the three languages. These findings incite relevant discussions concerning mother and foreign language learning and aim to contribute to the teaching of phraseological Lexicon as well as to materials development in mono and multilingual perspectives.

Keywords: idiomatic expressions, materials development, metaphors, phraseological lexicon, teaching and learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 177
31885 The Effectiveness of Using Dramatic Conventions as the Teaching Strategy on Self-Efficacy for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Authors: Tso Sheng-Yang, Wang Tien-Ni

Abstract:

Introduction and Purpose: Previous researchers have documented children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) prefer to escaping internal privates and external privates when they face tough conditions they can’t control or they don’t like.Especially, when children with ASD need to learn challenging tasks, such us Chinese language, their inappropriate behaviors will occur apparently. Recently, researchers apply positive behavior support strategies for children with ASD to enhance their self-efficacy and therefore to reduce their adverse behaviors. Thus, the purpose of this research was to design a series of lecture based on art therapy and to evaluate its effectiveness on the child’s self-efficacy. Method: This research was the single-case design study that recruited a high school boy with ASD. Whole research can be separated into three conditions. First, baseline condition, before the class started and ended, the researcher collected participant’s competencies of self-efficacy every session. In intervention condition, the research used dramatic conventions to teach the child in Chinese language twice a week.When the data was stable across three documents, the period entered to the maintenance condition. In maintenance condition, the researcher only collected the score of self-efficacynot to do other interventions five times a month to represent the effectiveness of maintenance.The time and frequency of data collection among three conditions are identical. Concerning art therapy, the common approach, e.g., music, drama, or painting is to use art medium as independent variable. Due to visual cues of art medium, the ASD can be easily to gain joint attention with teachers. Besides, the ASD have difficulties in understanding abstract objectives Thus, using the drama convention is helpful for the ASD to construct the environment and understand the context of Classical Chinese. By real operation, it can improve the ASD to understand the context and construct prior knowledge. Result: Bassd on the 10-points Likert scale and research, we product following results. (a) In baseline condition, the average score of self-efficacyis 1.12 points, rangedfrom 1 to 2 points, and the level change is 0 point. (b)In intervention condition, the average score of self-efficacy is 7.66 points rangedfrom 7 to 9 points, and the level change is 1 point. (c)In maintenance condition, the average score of self-efficacy is 6.66 points rangedfrom 6 to 7 points, and the level change is 1 point. Concerning immediacy of change, between baseline and intervention conditions, the difference is 5 points. No overlaps were found between these two conditions. Conclusion: According to the result, we find that it is effective that using dramatic conventions a s teaching strategies to teach children with ASD. The result presents the score of self-efficacyimmediately enhances when the dramatic conventions commences. Thus, we suggest the teacher can use this approach and adjust, based on the student’s trait, to teach the ASD on difficult task.

Keywords: dramatic conventions, autism spectrum disorder, slef-efficacy, teaching strategy

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31884 Japanese Language Learning Strategies : Case study student in Japanese subject part, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University

Authors: Pailin Klinkesorn

Abstract:

The research aimed to study the use of learning strategies for Japanese language among college students with different learning achievements who study Japanese as a foreign language in the Higher Education’s level. The survey was conducted by using a questionnaire adapted from Strategy Inventory for language Learning or SILL (Oxford, 1990), consisting of two parts: questions about personal data and questions about the use of learning strategies for Japanese language. The samples of college students in the Japanese language program were purposively selected from Suansunandha Rajabhat University. The data from the questionnaire was statistically analyzed by using mean scores and one-way ANOVA. The results showed that Social Strategies was used by the greatest number of college students, whereas Memory Strategies was used by the least number of students. The students in different levels used various strategies, including Memory Strategies, Cognitive Strategies, Metacognitive Strategies and Social Strategies, at the significance level of 0.05. In addition, the students with different learning achievements also used different strategies at the significance level of 0.05. Further studies can explore learning strategies of other groups of Japanese learners, such as university students or company employees. Moreover, learning strategies for language skills, including listening, speaking, reading and writing, can be analyzed for better understanding of learners’ characteristics and for teaching applications.

Keywords: language learning strategies, achievement, Japanese, college students

Procedia PDF Downloads 384