Search results for: learner corpora

Authors: Kausik Halder, Nabendu Chaki, Ranjan Dasgupta

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We present a modelling framework that supports the engineering of early requirements specifications for design of learner centric dynamic Learning Management System. The framework is based on i* modelling tool and Means End Analysis, that adopts primitive concepts for modelling early requirements (such as actor, goal, and strategic dependency). We show how pedagogical and computational requirements for designing a learner centric Learning Management system can be adapted for the automatic early requirement engineering specifications. Finally, we presented a model on a Learner Quanta based adaptive Courseware. Our early requirement analysis shows that how means end analysis reveals gaps and inconsistencies in early requirements specifications that are by no means trivial to discover without the help of formal analysis tool.

Keywords: adaptive courseware, early requirement engineering, means end analysis, organizational modelling, requirement modelling

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Authors: S. Chee Choy, Pauline Swee Choo Goh, Yow Lin Liew

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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the English version and a Malay translation of the 21-item Learner Awareness Questionnaire for its application to assess student learning in higher education. The Learner Awareness Questionnaire, originally written in English, is a quantitative measure of how and why students learn. The questionnaire gives an indication of the process and motives to learn using four scales: survival, establishing stability, approval, and loving to learn. Data in the present study came from 680 university students enrolled in various programs in Malaysia. The Malay version of the questionnaire supported a similar four-factor structure and internal consistency to the English version. The four factors of the Malay version also showed moderate to strong correlations with those of the English versions. The results suggest that the Malay version of the questionnaire is similar to the English version. However, further refinement for the questions is needed to strengthen the correlations between the two questionnaires.

Keywords: student learning, learner awareness, questionnaire development, instrument validation

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Authors: Iman Ali Ahmed Al-Rashed

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This paper directs attention to the limitations of the teacher-centered strategy in teaching. The aim of this study is to draw more educational attention to learner-centered strategy in order to shift the emphasis from the traditional concept of teaching to a new concept in teaching. To begin bridging the traditional concept of teaching and the new concept, the study will explore the new concept of teaching to support teaching in Arab World generally and in Iraq specifically. A qualitative case study orientation was used to collect data in the form of classroom observations, interviews and field notes. The teaching practices used by three university instructors are investigated and according to the findings, some explanations and recommendations are made.

Keywords: case study, learner-centered strategy, qualitative study, teacher-centered strategy, traditional teaching

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Authors: Said Ahmed Zohairy

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Significant shifts in the theory and practice of teaching vocabulary affect teachers’ decisions about learning materials’ design. Relevant literature supports teaching specialised, authentic, and multi-word lexical items rather than focusing on single-word vocabulary lists. Corpora, collections of texts stored in a database, presents a reliable source of teaching and learning materials. Although corpus-informed studies provided guidance for teachers to identify useful language chunks and phraseological units, there is a scarcity in the literature discussing the use of corpora in teaching English for academic and specific purposes (EASP). The aim of this study is to improve teaching practices and provide a description of the pedagogical choices and procedures of an EASP tutor in an attempt to offer guidance for novice corpus users. It draws on the researcher’s experience of utilising corpus linguistic tools to design vocabulary learning activities without focusing on students’ learning outcomes. Hence, it adopts a self-study research methodology which is based on five methodological components suggested by other self-study researchers. The findings of the study noted that designing specialised and corpus-informed vocabulary learning activities could be challenging for teachers, as they require technical knowledge of how to navigate corpora and utilise corpus analysis tools. Findings also include a description of the researcher’s approach to building and analysing a specialised corpus for the benefit of novice corpus users; they should be able to start their own journey of designing corpus-based activities.

Keywords: corpora, corpus linguistics, corpus-informed, English for academic and specific purposes, agribusiness, vocabulary, phraseological units, materials design

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Authors: Qiao-Yu Warren Cai

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Due to the rise of big data, building corpora and using them to analyze ChineseL2 learners’ language output has become a trend. Various empirical research has been conducted using Chinese corpora built by different academic institutes. However, most of the research analyzed the data in the Chinese corpora usingcorpus-based qualitative content analysis with descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics can be used to make summations about the subjects or samples that research has actually measured to describe the numerical data, but the collected data cannot be generalized to the population. Comte, a Frenchpositivist, has argued since the 19th century that human beings’ knowledge, whether the discipline is humanistic and social science or natural science, should be verified in a scientific way to construct a universal theory to explain the truth and human beings behaviors. Inferential statistics, able to make judgments of the probability of a difference observed between groups being dependable or caused by chance (Free Geography Notes, 2015)and to infer from the subjects or examples what the population might think or behave, is just the right method to support Comte’s argument in the field of TCSOL. Also, inferential statistics is a core of quantitative research, but little research has been conducted by combing corpora with inferential statistics. Little research analyzes the differences in Chinese L2 learners’ language corpus output errors by using theOne-way ANOVA so that the findings of previous research are limited to inferring the population's Chinese errors according to the given samples’ Chinese corpora. To fill this knowledge gap in the professional development of Taiwanese TCSOL, the present study aims to utilize the One-way ANOVA to analyze corpus output errors of Chinese L2 learners from America, Myanmar, and Singapore. The results show that no significant difference exists in ‘shì (是) sentence’ and word order errors, but compared with Americans and Singaporeans, it is significantly easier for Myanmar to have ‘sentence blends.’ Based on the above results, the present study provides an instructional approach and contributes to further exploration of how Chinese L2 learners can have (and use) learning strategies to lower errors.

Keywords: Chinese corpus, error analysis, one-way analysis of variance, Chinese L2 learners, Americans, myanmar, Singaporeans

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Authors: Pinar Ozdemir Ayber, Zeina Hojeij

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Blended Learning (BL) is a rapidly growing teaching and learning approach, which brings together the best of both face-to-face and online learning to expand learning opportunities for students. However, there is limited research on the practices, opportunities and quality of instruction in Blended Classrooms, and on the role of the teaching faculty as well as the learners in these types of classes. This paper will highlight the researchers’ experiences and reflections on blending their classes. It will focus on the importance of designing effective lesson plans that emphasize learner engagement and motivation in alignment with course learning outcomes. In addition, it will identify the changing roles of the teacher and the learners and suggest appropriate variations to the traditional classroom setting taking into consideration the benefits and the challenges of the Blended Classroom. It is hoped that this paper would provide sufficient input for participants to reflect on ways they can blend their own lessons to promote ubiquitous learning and student autonomy. Practical tips and ideas will be shared with the participants on various strategies and technologies that were used in the researchers’ classes.

Keywords: blended learning, learner autonomy, learner engagement, learner motivation, mobile learning tools

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Authors: Pieter Conradie, M. Marina Moller

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Web 2.0 Internet-based technologies have intruded all aspects of human life. Presently, this phenomenon is especially evident in the educational context, with increased disruptive Web 2.0 technology infusions dramatically changing educational practice. The most prominent of these Web 2.0 intrusions can be identified as Massive Open Online Courses (Coursera, EdX), video and photo sharing sites (Youtube, Flickr, Instagram), and Web 2.0 online tools utilize to create Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) (Symbaloo (aggregator), Delicious (social bookmarking), PBWorks (collaboration), Google+ (social networks), Wordspress (blogs), Wikispaces (wiki)). These Web 2.0 technologies have supported the realignment from a teacher-based pedagogy (didactic presentation) to a learner-based pedagogy (problem-based learning, project-based learning, blended learning), allowing greater learner autonomy. No longer is the educator the source of knowledge. Instead the educator has become the facilitator and mediator of the learner, involved in developing learner competencies to support life-long learning (continuous learning) in the 21st century. In this study, the self-regulated learning skills of thirty first-year university learners were explored by utilizing the Online Self-regulated Learning Questionnaire. Implementing an action research method, an intervention was affected towards improving the self-regulation skill set of the participants. Statistical significant results were obtained with increased self-regulated learning proficiency, positively impacting learner performance. Goal setting, time management, environment structuring, help seeking, task (learning) strategies and self-evaluation skills were confirmed as determinants of improved learner success.

Keywords: andragogy, online self-regulated learning questionnaire, self-regulated learning, web 2.0

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Authors: Libor Zachoval, Daire O Broin, Oisin Cawley

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E-learning platforms, such as Blackboard have two major shortcomings: limited data capture as a result of the limitations of SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model), and lack of incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms which could lead to better course adaptations. With the recent development of Experience Application Programming Interface (xAPI), a large amount of additional types of data can be captured and that opens a window of possibilities from which online education can benefit. In a corporate setting, where companies invest billions on the learning and development of their employees, some learner behaviours can be troublesome for they can hinder the knowledge development of a learner. Behaviours that hinder the knowledge development also raise ambiguity about learner’s knowledge mastery, specifically those related to gaming the system. Furthermore, a company receives little benefit from their investment if employees are passing courses without possessing the required knowledge and potential compliance risks may arise. Using xAPI and rules derived from a state-of-the-art review, we identified three learner behaviours, primarily related to guessing, in a corporate compliance course. The identified behaviours are: trying each option for a question, specifically for multiple-choice questions; selecting a single option for all the questions on the test; and continuously repeating tests upon failing as opposed to going over the learning material. These behaviours were detected on learners who repeated the test at least 4 times before passing the course. These findings suggest that gauging the mastery of a learner from multiple-choice questions test scores alone is a naive approach. Thus, next steps will consider the incorporation of additional data points, knowledge estimation models to model knowledge mastery of a learner more accurately, and analysis of the data for correlations between knowledge development and identified learner behaviours. Additional work could explore how learner behaviours could be utilised to make changes to a course. For example, course content may require modifications (certain sections of learning material may be shown to not be helpful to many learners to master the learning outcomes aimed at) or course design (such as the type and duration of feedback).

Keywords: artificial intelligence, corporate e-learning environment, knowledge maintenance, xAPI

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Authors: Katsuyuki Umezawa, Makoto Nakazawa, Manabu Kobayashi, Yutaka Ishii, Michiko Nakano, Shigeichi Hirasawa

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This research aims to develop a self-study system equipped with an artificial teacher who gives advice to students by detecting the learners and to evaluate language learning in a unified framework. 'Detecting the learners' means that the system understands the learners' learning conditions, such as each learner’s degree of understanding, the difference in each learner’s thinking process, the degree of concentration or boredom in learning, and problem solving for each learner, which can be interpreted from learning behavior. In this paper, we propose a system to efficiently collect brain waves from learners by focusing on only the brain waves among the biological information for 'detecting the learners'. The conventional Electroencephalograph (EEG) measurement method during learning using a simple EEG has the following disadvantages. (1) The start and end of EEG measurement must be done manually by the experiment participant or staff. (2) Even when the EEG signal is weak, it may not be noticed, and the data may not be obtained. (3) Since the acquired EEG data is stored in each PC, there is a possibility that the time of data acquisition will be different in each PC. This time, we developed a system to collect brain wave data on the server side. This system overcame the above disadvantages.

Keywords: artificial teacher, e-learning, self-study system, simple EEG

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Authors: Yi-Wei Huang

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Eileen Chang is a well-known writer of modern Chinese literature. She is also a translator that publishes her self-translation The Rice Sprout Song. The purpose of the study is to identify the style of Eileen Chang’s self-translations by corpora, especially in the case of The Rice Sprout Song. The Rice Sprout Song is first written in English and then translated into Chinese by the author herself. The procedure of translation is complicated due to the bilingual transition by the same person. Therefore, the aim of the study is to identify Eileen Chang’s style on her self-translation by comparing her works The Old Man and the Sea, The Rice Sprout Song, and The Rouge of The North. The study uses computer-aided software like AntConc, Notepad++, StanfordCoreNLP, and Python to analyze the style of the works, especially focuses on reduplications and the composition of the sentences. Reduplications are commonly seen in Eileen Chang’s works, and they often appear with colors or onomatopoeia. With these criteria, the style of self-translating can be detected and analyzed.

Keywords: corpora, Eileen Chang, reduplications, self-translation

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Authors: Ryoo Hye Jin Agnes

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This study aims to investigate the efficacy of clickers in fostering L2 class interaction. In an L2 classroom, active learner-to-learner interactions and learner-to-teacher interactions play an important role in language acquisition. In light of this, introducing learning tools that promote such interactions would benefit L2 classroom by fostering interaction. This is because the anonymity of clickers allows learners to express their needs without the social risks associated with speaking up in the class. clickers therefore efficiently help learners express their level of understanding during the process of learning itself. This allows for an evaluative feedback loop where both learners and teachers understand the level of progress of the learners, better enabling classrooms to adapt to the learners’ needs. Eventually this tool promotes participation from learners. This, in turn, is believed to be effective in fostering classroom interaction, allowing learning to take place in a more comfortable yet vibrant way. This study is finalized by presenting the result of an experiment conducted to verify the effectiveness of this approach when teaching pragmatic aspect of Korean expressions with similar semantic functions. The learning achievement of learners in the experimental group was found higher than the learners’ in a control group. A survey was distributed to the learners, questioning them regarding the efficacy of clickers, and how it contributed to their learning in areas such as motivation, self-assessment, increasing participation, as well as giving feedback to teachers. Analyzing the data collected from the questionnaire given to the learners, the study presented data suggesting that this approach increased the scope of interactivity in the classroom, thus not only increasing participation but enhancing the type of classroom participation among learners. This participation in turn led to a marked improvement in their communicative abilities.

Keywords: second language acquisition, interaction, clickers, learner response system, output from learners, learner’s cognitive process

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Authors: Jalal Maqbool, Gyu Myoung Lee

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Using smart devices for context aware mobile learning is becoming increasingly popular. This has led to mobile learning technology becoming an indispensable part of today’s learning environment and platforms. However, some fundamental issues remain - namely, mobile learning still lacks the ability to truly understand human reaction and user behaviour. This is due to the fact that current mobile learning systems are passive and not aware of learners’ changing contextual situations. They rely on static information about mobile learners. In addition, current mobile learning platforms lack the capability to incorporate dynamic contextual situations into learners’ preferences. Thus, this thesis aims to address these issues highlighted by designing a context aware framework which is able to sense learner’s contextual situations, handle data dynamically, and which can use contextual information to suggest bespoke learning content according to a learner’s preferences. This is to be underpinned by a robust recommendation system, which has the capability to perform these functions, thus providing learners with a truly context-aware mobile learning experience, delivering learning contents using smart devices and adapting to learning preferences as and when it is required. In addition, part of designing an algorithm for the recommendation engine has to be based on learner and application needs, personal characteristics and circumstances, as well as being able to comprehend human cognitive processes which would enable the technology to interact effectively and deliver mobile learning content which is relevant, according to the learner’s contextual situations. The concept of this proposed project is to provide a new method of smart learning, based on a capable recommendation engine for providing an intuitive mobile learning model based on learner actions.

Keywords: aware, context, learning, mobile

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Authors: Thomas Yeboah, Gifty Akouko Sarpong

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Every learner has a specific learning style that helps him/her to study best. This means that any learning method (e-learning method or traditional face-to-face method) a learner chooses should address the learning style of the learner. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to investigate whether learners’ grade achievement in e-learning environment is improved for learners with a particular learning style. In this research, purposive sampling technique was employed for selecting the sample size of three hundred and twenty (320) students studying a course UGRC 140 Science and Technology in our Lives at Christian Service University College. Data were analyzed by using, percentages, T -test, and one-way ANOVA. A thorough analysis was done on the data collected and the results revealed that learners with the Assimilator learning style and the converger learning style obtained higher grade achievement than both diverger learning style and accommodative learning style. Again, the results also revealed that accommodative learning style was not good enough for e-learning method.

Keywords: e-learning, learning style, grade achievement, accomodative, divergent, convergent, assimilative

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Authors: Pimploi Tirastittam, Sawanath Treesathon, Amornrath Ongkawat

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Learning Management System (LMS) is the system which uses to manage the learning in order to grouping the content and learning activity between the lecturer and learner including online examination and evaluation. Nowadays, it is the borderless learning era so the learning activities can be accessed from everywhere in the world and also anytime via the information technology and media. The learner can easily access to the knowledge so the different in time and distance is not a constraint for learning anymore. The learning pattern which was used in this research is the integration of the in-class learning and online learning via internet and will be able to monitor the progress by the Learning management system which will create the fast response and accessible learning process via the social media. In order to increase the capability and freedom of the learner, the system can show the current and history of the learning document, video conference and also has the chat room for the learner and lecturer to interact to each other. So the objectives of the “The Design and Applied of Learning Management System via Social Media on Internet: Case Study of Operating System for Business Subject” are to expand the opportunity of learning and to increase the efficiency of learning as well as increase the communication channel between lecturer and student. The data of this research was collect from 30 users of the system which are students who enroll in the subject. And the result of the research is in the “Very Good” which is conformed to the hypothesis.

Keywords: Learning Management System, social media, Operating System, information technology

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Authors: Natarajan Hema, Tamilarasan Karunakaran

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Technology is remodeling the process of teaching and learning. An inflection point is faced where technological interventions are rewiring learning process in formal classrooms. Employment depends on dynamic learning capability. Transforming the functionalities of teaching-learning-assessment through innovation is needed to modify the roles of teacher to enabler and learner to the dynamic learner. This makeover is vital for English language teaching where English is acquired as a skill, exercised as ability and get stabilized as a competence. This reshaping could be achieved through providing autonomy to participants of learning. This paper explores parameters and components aiding such a transformation. The differentiated responsibilities and other critical learning support systems are projected as viable options. New age teaching practices are studied for feasibilities to aid transformation and being put forth an inter-operable teaching-learning system for a learner-centric ELT classrooms. LOTUS model developed by the authors is also studied for its inclusiveness to promote skill acquisition.

Keywords: ELT methodology, communicative competence, skill acquisition , new age teaching

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Authors: M. Najib Osman, Hanafizan Hussain, Sri Kusuma Wati Mohd Daud

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Avatar was used as user’s symbol of identity in online communications such as Facebook, Twitter, online game, and portal community between unknown people. The development of this symbol is the use of animated character or avatar, which can engage learners in a way that draws them into the e-Learning experience. Immersive learning is one of the most effective learning techniques, and animated characters can help create an immersive environment. E-learning is an ideal learning environment using modern means of information technology, through the effective integration of information technology and the curriculum to achieve, a new learning style which can fully reflect the main role of the students to reform the traditional teaching structure thoroughly. Essential in any e-learning is the degree of interactivity for the learner, and whether the learner is able to study at any time, or whether there is a need for the learner to be online or in a classroom with other learners at the same time (synchronous learning). Ideally, e-learning should engage the learners, allowing them to interact with the course materials, obtaining feedback on their progress and assistance whenever it is required. However, the degree of interactivity in e-learning depends on how the course has been developed and is dependent on the software used for its development, and the way the material is delivered to the learner. Therefore, users’ accessibility that allows access to information at any time and places and their positive attitude towards e-learning such as having interacting with a good teacher and the creation of a more natural and friendly environment for e-learning should be enhanced. This is to motivate their learning enthusiasm and it has been the responsibility of educators to incorporate new technology into their ways of teaching.

Keywords: avatar, e-learning, higher education, students' perception

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Authors: Szymon Rutkowski, Tomasz Korbak

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We present a reinforcement-learning-based method of training neural machine translation models without parallel corpora. The standard encoder-decoder approach to machine translation suffers from two problems we aim to address. First, it needs parallel corpora, which are scarce, especially for low-resource languages. Second, it lacks psychological plausibility of learning procedure: learning a foreign language is about learning to communicate useful information, not merely learning to transduce from one language’s 'encoding' to another. We instead pose the problem of learning to translate as learning a policy in a communication game between two agents: the translator and the classifier. The classifier is trained beforehand on a natural language inference task (determining the entailment relation between a premise and a hypothesis) in the target language. The translator produces a sequence of actions that correspond to generating translations of both the hypothesis and premise, which are then passed to the classifier. The translator is rewarded for classifier’s performance on determining entailment between sentences translated by the translator to disciple’s native language. Translator’s performance thus reflects its ability to communicate useful information to the classifier. In effect, we train a machine translation model without the need for parallel corpora altogether. While similar reinforcement learning formulations for zero-shot translation were proposed before, there is a number of improvements we introduce. While prior research aimed at grounding the translation task in the physical world by evaluating agents on an image captioning task, we found that using a linguistic task is more sample-efficient. Natural language inference (also known as recognizing textual entailment) captures semantic properties of sentence pairs that are poorly correlated with semantic similarity, thus enforcing basic understanding of the role played by compositionality. It has been shown that models trained recognizing textual entailment produce high-quality general-purpose sentence embeddings transferrable to other tasks. We use stanford natural language inference (SNLI) dataset as well as its analogous datasets for French (XNLI) and Polish (CDSCorpus). Textual entailment corpora can be obtained relatively easily for any language, which makes our approach more extensible to low-resource languages than traditional approaches based on parallel corpora. We evaluated a number of reinforcement learning algorithms (including policy gradients and actor-critic) to solve the problem of translator’s policy optimization and found that our attempts yield some promising improvements over previous approaches to reinforcement-learning based zero-shot machine translation.

Keywords: agent-based language learning, low-resource translation, natural language inference, neural machine translation, reinforcement learning

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Authors: Akbarnejad Neda

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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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Authors: Tianqi Wu, Min Wang

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Research investigating language acquisition from a constructionist perspective has demonstrated that language is learned as constructions at various linguistic levels, which is related to factors of frequency, semantic prototypicality, and form-meaning contingency. However, previous research on construction learning tended to focus on clause-level constructions such as verb argument constructions but few attempts were made to study morpheme-level constructions such as the progressive construction, which is regarded as a source of acquisition problems for English learners from diverse L1 backgrounds, especially for those whose L1 do not have an equivalent construction such as German and Chinese. To trace the developmental trajectory of Chinese EFL learners’ use of the progressive with respect to verb frequency, verb-progressive contingency, and verbal prototypicality and generality, a learner corpus consisting of three sub-corpora representing three different English proficiency levels was extracted from the Chinese Learners of English Corpora (CLEC). As the reference point, a native speakers’ corpus extracted from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays was also established. All the texts were annotated with C7 tagset by part-of-speech tagging software. After annotation all valid progressive hits were retrieved with AntConc 3.4.3 followed by a manual check. Frequency-related data showed that from the lowest to the highest proficiency level, (1) the type token ratio increased steadily from 23.5% to 35.6%, getting closer to 36.4% in the native speakers’ corpus, indicating a wider use of verbs in the progressive; (2) the normalized entropy value rose from 0.776 to 0.876, working towards the target score of 0.886 in native speakers’ corpus, revealing that upper-intermediate learners exhibited a more even distribution and more productive use of verbs in the progressive; (3) activity verbs (i.e., verbs with prototypical progressive meanings like running and singing) dropped from 59% to 34% but non-prototypical verbs such as state verbs (e.g., being and living) and achievement verbs (e.g., dying and finishing) were increasingly used in the progressive. Apart from raw frequency analyses, collostructional analyses were conducted to quantify verb-progressive contingency and to determine what verbs were distinctively associated with the progressive construction. Results were in line with raw frequency findings, which showed that contingency between the progressive and non-prototypical verbs represented by light verbs (e.g., going, doing, making, and coming) increased as English proficiency proceeded. These findings altogether suggested that beginning Chinese EFL learners were less productive in using the progressive construction: they were constrained by a small set of verbs which had concrete and typical progressive meanings (e.g., the activity verbs). But with English proficiency increasing, their use of the progressive began to spread to marginal members such as the light verbs.

Keywords: Construction learning, Corpus-based, Progressives, Prototype

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Authors: Kim Bower

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Evaluating and researching motivation in language learning is a complex and multi-faceted activity. Various models for investigating learner motivation have been proposed in the literature, but no one model supplies a complex and coherent model for investigating a range of motivational characteristics. Here, such a methodological framework, which includes exemplification of sources of evidence and potential methods of investigation, is proposed. The process model for the investigation of motivation within language learning settings proposed is based on a complex dynamic systems perspective that takes account of cognition and affects. It focuses on three overarching aspects of motivation: the learning environment, learner engagement and learner identities. Within these categories subsets are defined: the learning environment incorporates teacher, course and group specific aspects of motivation; learner engagement addresses the principal characteristics of learners' perceived value of activities, their attitudes towards language learning, their perceptions of their learning and engagement in learning tasks; and within learner identities, principal characteristics of self-concept and mastery of the language are explored. Exemplifications of potential sources of evidence in the model reflect the multiple influences within and between learner and environmental factors and the possible changes in both that may emerge over time. The model was initially developed as a framework for investigating different models of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in contrasting contexts in secondary schools in England. The study, from which examples are drawn to exemplify the model, aimed to address the following three research questions: (1) in what ways does CLIL impact on learner motivation? (2) what are the main elements of CLIL that enhance motivation? and (3) to what extent might these be transferable to other contexts? This new model has been tried and tested in three locations in England and reported as case studies. Following an initial visit to each institution to discuss the qualitative research, instruments were developed according to the proposed model. A questionnaire was drawn up and completed by one group prior to a 3-day data collection visit to each institution, during which interviews were held with academic leaders, the head of the department, the CLIL teacher(s), and two learner focus groups of six-eight learners. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. 2-4 naturalistic observations of lessons were undertaken in each setting, as appropriate to the context, to provide colour and thereby a richer picture. Findings were subjected to an interpretive analysis by the themes derived from the process model and are reported elsewhere. The model proved to be an effective and coherent framework for planning the research, instrument design, data collection and interpretive analysis of data in these three contrasting settings, in which different models of language learning were in place. It is hoped that the proposed model, reported here together with exemplification and commentary, will enable teachers and researchers in a wide range of language learning contexts to investigate learner motivation in a systematic and in-depth manner.

Keywords: investigate, language-learning, learner motivation model, dynamic systems perspective

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Authors: Alex Elentukh

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The paper is based on data collected from final exams administered during five years of teaching the graduate course in software engineering. The visualization instrument with four distinct personas has been used to improve the effectiveness of each class. The study offers a plethora of clues toward students' behavioral preferences. Diversity among students (professional background, physical proximity) is too significant to assume a single face of a learner. This is particularly true for a body of online graduate students in computer science. Conclusions of the study (each learner is unique, and each class is unique) are extrapolated to demystify the notion of an 'average software engineer.' An immediate direction for an educator is to ensure a course applies to a wide audience of very different individuals. On the other hand, a student should be clear about his/her abilities and preferences - to follow the most effective learning path.

Keywords: K.3.2 computer and information science education, learner profiling, adaptive learning, software engineering

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Authors: Siti Ayu Ningsih

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This study aims to find the differences outcomes in learning reading comprehension with text and film as media on Indonesian Language for foreign speaker (BIPA) learning at intermediate level. By using quantitative and qualitative research methods, the respondent of this study is a single respondent from D'Royal Morocco Integrative Islamic School in grade nine from secondary level. Quantitative method used to calculate the learning outcomes that have been given the appropriate action cycle, whereas qualitative method used to translate the findings derived from quantitative methods to be described. The technique used in this study is the observation techniques and testing work. Based on the research, it is known that the use of the text media is more effective than the film for intermediate level of Indonesian Language for foreign speaker learner. This is because, when using film the learner does not have enough time to take note the difficult vocabulary and don't have enough time to look for the meaning of the vocabulary from the dictionary. While the use of media texts shows the better effectiveness because it does not require additional time to take note the difficult words. For the words that are difficult or strange, the learner can immediately find its meaning from the dictionary. The presence of the text is also very helpful for Indonesian Language for foreign speaker learner to find the answers according to the questions more easily. By matching the vocabulary of the question into the text references.

Keywords: Indonesian language for foreign speaker, learning outcome, media, reading comprehension

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Authors: Ogar Ofut Tumenayu, Olga Shabalina

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This paper describes the application of two types of pedagogical agents’ technology with different functions in an adaptive educational game with the sole aim of improving learning and enhancing interactivities in Digital Educational Games (DEG). This idea could promote the elimination of some problems of DEG, like isolation in game-based learning, by introducing a tutor and tutee pedagogical agents. We present an analysis of a learning companion interacting in a peer tutoring environment as a step toward improving social interactions in the educational game environment. We show that tutor and tutee agents use different interventions and interactive approaches: the tutor agent is engaged in tracking the learner’s activities and inferring the learning state, while the tutee agent initiates interactions with the learner at the appropriate times and in appropriate manners. In order to provide motivation to prevent mistakes and clarity a game task, the tutor agent uses the help dialog tool to provide assistance, while the tutee agent provides collaboration assistance by using the hind tool. We presented our idea on a prototype game called “Pyramid Programming Game,” a 2D game that was developed using Libgdx. The game's Pyramid component symbolizes a programming task that is presented to the player in the form of a puzzle. During gameplay, the Agents can instruct, direct, inspire, and communicate emotions. They can also rapidly alter the instructional pattern in response to the learner's performance and knowledge. The pyramid must be effectively destroyed in order to win the game. The game also teaches and illustrates the advantages of utilizing educational agents such as TrA and TeA to assist and motivate students. Our findings support the idea that the functionality of a pedagogical agent should be dualized into an instructional and learner’s companion agent in order to enhance interactivity in a game-based environment.

Keywords: tutor agent, tutee agent, learner’s companion interaction, agent collaboration

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Authors: Orlyn Joyce D. Esquivel

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This study analyzed 50 selected research papers from professional language and linguistic academic journals to portray the differences between Kachru’s (1994) outer circle and expanding circle Englishes. The selected outer circle Englishes include those of Bangladesh, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, and Singapore; and the selected expanding circle Englishes are those of China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and Thailand. The researcher built ten corpora (five research papers for each corpus) to represent each variety of Englishes. The corpora were examined under grammatical and lexical features using Modified English TreeTagger in Sketch Engine. Results revealed the distinct grammatical and lexical features through the table and textual analyses, illustrated from the most to least dominant linguistic elements. In addition, comparative analyses were done to distinguish the features of each of the selected Englishes. The Language Change Theory was used as a basis in the discussion. Hence, the findings suggest that the ‘outer circle’ Englishes and ‘expanding circle’ Englishes will continue to drift from International English.

Keywords: applied linguistics, English as a global language, expanding circle Englishes, global Englishes, outer circle Englishes

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Authors: Julie Lucille H. Del Valle

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To improve its public school education, the Philippines took a radical curriculum reform in 2012, by launching the K-to-12 program which not only added two years to its basic education but also mandated for a replacement of traditional teaching with learner-centered pedagogy, an instruction whose western underpinnings suggest improving student achievement, thus, making pedagogies in the country more or less similar with those in Europe and USA. This policy, however, placed learner-centered pedagogy in a binary opposition against teacher-centered instruction, creating a simplistic dichotomy between good and bad teaching. It is in this dichotomy that this study seeks to explore, using Critical Pedagogy of the Place as the lens, in understanding what constitutes good teaching across a range of learner-centered and teacher-centered pedagogies in the context of public schools in disadvantaged communities. Furthermore, this paper examines how pedagogical homogeneity, arguably influenced by dominant global imperatives with economic agenda – often referred as economisation of education – not only thins out local identities as structures of global schooling become increasingly similar but also limits the concept of good teaching to student outcomes and corporate employability. This paper draws from qualitative research on students, thus addressing the gap created by studies on good teaching which looked mainly into the perceptions of teachers and administrators, while overlooking those of students whose voices must be considered in the formulation of inclusive policies that advocate for true education reform. Using ethnographic methods including student focus groups, classroom observations, and teacher interviews, responses from students of disadvantaged schools reveal that good teaching includes both learner-centered and teacher-centered practices that incorporate ‘academic caring’ which sustains their motivation to achieve in school despite the challenging learning environments. The combination of these two pedagogies equips students with life-long skills necessary to gain equal access to sustainable economic opportunities in their local communities.

Keywords: critical pedagogy of the place, good teaching, learner-centered pedagogy, placed-based instruction

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Authors: Mani Ram Sharma

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We live in a busy world with sudden distractions and many things to think about. The rapid speed of science and technology keeps our world in constant motion. Students leaving the classroom after being taught by the teachers are thinking about a thousand things: "Did I understand what teacher taught?" However, when they come into the classroom, as teachers, we expect them to be ready to learn, ready to receive information, and retain it. There is a question that how can learners do this with so much in their learning process. It is obliviously with the use of innovation in the classroom. It fosters the students to learn innovatively to establish learner's autonomy. This article outlines the role, need, and process of innovation in the language classroom and teaching.

Keywords: distraction, foster, innovation, learner's autonomy, retainment

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Authors: Rasha Elhawari

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Heritage language learners (HLL) are part of the linguistic reality in Foreign Language Learning (FLL). These learners present several characteristics that are different from non-heritage language learners. They have a personal connection with the language and their motivation to learn the language is partly because of this personal connection. In Canada there is a large diversity in the foreign language learning classroom; the Arabic language classroom is no exception. The Arabic HLL is unique for more than one reason. First, is the fact that the Arabic language is spoken across twenty-two Arab countries across the Arab World. Across the Arab World there is a standard variation and a local dialect that co-exist side by side, i.e. diaglossia exists in a strong and unique way as a feature of Arabic. Second, Arabic is the language that all Muslims across the Muslim World use for their prayers. This raises a number of points when we consider Arabic as a Heritage Language; namely the role of diaglossia, culture and religion. The fact that there is a group of leaners that can be regarded as HLL who are not of Arabic speaking background but are Muslims and use the language for religious purposes is unique, thus course developers and language instructors need take this into consideration. The paper takes a closer look at this distinction and establishes sub-groups the Arabic HLLs in a language and/or culture specific way related mainly to the Arabic HLL. It looks at the learners at the beginners’ Arabic class at the undergraduate university level over a period of three years in order to define this learner. Learners belong to different groups and backgrounds but they all share common characteristics. The paper presents a detailed look at the learner types present at this class in order to help prepare and develop material for this specific learner group. The paper shows that separate HLL and non-HLL courses, especially at the introductory and intermediate level, is successful in resolving some of the pedagogical problems that occur in the Arabic as a Foreign Language classroom. In conclusion, the paper recommends the development of HLL courses at the early levels of language learning. It calls for a change in the pedagogical practices to overcome some of the challenges learner in the introductory Arabic class can face.

Keywords: Arabic, Heritage Language, langauge learner, teaching

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Authors: Maria Zinnia Bardas Hoffmann

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Contrastive Analysis (CA) is the systematic comparison between two languages. It stems from the notion that errors are caused by interference of the L1 system in the acquisition process of an L2. CA represents a useful tool to understand the nature of learning and acquisition. Also, this particular method promises a path to un-derstand the nature of underlying cognitive processes, even when other factors such as intrinsic motivation and teaching strategies were found to best explain student’s problems in acquisition. CA study is justified not only from the need to get a deeper understanding of the nature of SLA, but as an invaluable source to provide clues, at a cognitive level, for those general processes involved in rule formation and abstract thought. It is relevant for cross disciplinary studies and the fields of Computational Thought, Natural Language processing, Applied Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics and Math Theory. That being said, this paper intends to address here as well its own set of constraints and limitations. Finally, this paper: (a) aims at identifying some of the difficulties students may find in their learning process due to the nature of their specific variety of L1, Rio de la Plata Spanish (RPS), (b) represents an attempt to discuss the necessity for specific models to approach CA.

Keywords: second language acquisition, applied linguistics, contrastive analysis, applied contrastive analysis English language department, meta-linguistic rules, cross-linguistics studies, computational thought, natural language processing

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Authors: Jutta Ransmayr

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The digital age has long arrived at Austrian schools, so both society and educationalists demand that digital means should be integrated accordingly to day-to-day school routines. Therefore, the Austrian school-leaving exam (A-levels) can now be written either by hand or by using a computer. However, the choice of writing medium (pen and paper or computer) for written examination papers, which are considered 'high-stakes' exams, raises a number of questions that have not yet been adequately investigated and answered until recently, such as: What effects do the different conditions of text production in the written German A-levels have on the component of normative linguistic accuracy? How do the spelling skills of German A-level papers written with a pen differ from those that the students wrote on the computer? And how is the teacher's assessment related to this? Which practical desiderata for German didactics can be derived from this? In a trilateral pilot project of the Austrian Center for Digital Humanities (ACDH) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna in cooperation with the Austrian Ministry of Education and the Council for German Orthography, these questions were investigated. A representative Austrian learner corpus, consisting of around 530 German A-level papers from all over Austria (pen and computer written), was set up in order to subject it to a quantitative (corpus-linguistic and statistical) and qualitative investigation with regard to the spelling and punctuation performance of the high school graduates and the differences between pen- and computer-written papers and their assessments. Relevant studies are currently available mainly from the Anglophone world. These have shown that writing on the computer increases the motivation to write, has positive effects on the length of the text, and, in some cases, also on the quality of the text. Depending on the writing situation and other technical aids, better results in terms of spelling and punctuation could also be found in the computer-written texts as compared to the handwritten ones. Studies also point towards a tendency among teachers to rate handwritten texts better than computer-written texts. In this paper, the first comparable results from the German-speaking area are to be presented. Research results have shown that, on the one hand, there are significant differences between handwritten and computer-written work with regard to performance in orthography and punctuation. On the other hand, the corpus linguistic investigation and the subsequent statistical analysis made it clear that not only the teachers' assessments of the students’ spelling performance vary enormously but also the overall assessments of the exam papers – the factor of the production medium (pen and paper or computer) also seems to play a decisive role.

Keywords: exam paper assessment, pen and paper or computer, learner corpora, linguistics

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Authors: Rreze Gecaj, Corina Schanzenbach, Benedikt Kirchner, Michael Pfaffl, Bajram Berisha

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The maintenance of corpus lutem (CL) during early pregnancy in cattle is a critical and multifarious process. A luteotrophic mechanism originating from the embryo is widely accepted as the triggering signal for the CL maintenance. In the cattle, it is the interferon-tau (IFNT) secretion form conceptus that prevents CL regression and ensures progesterone production for the establishment of pregnancy. In addition to endocrine and paracrine signals, microRNA (miRNA) can also support CL sustainability during early pregnancy. MiRNA are small non-coding nucleic acids that regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally and are shown to be involved in the modulation of CL function. However, the examination of miRNAs in corpus luteum function at the early pregnancy still remains largely uncovered. This study aims at profiling the expression of miRNA in CL during the early pregnancy in cattle by comparing it with the CL form late cycle and with the regressed CL. Corpora lutea were assigned in two different groups during the cycle (C13 group, late CL: days 13-18 and C18, regressed CL group: day >18) and during the early pregnancy (group P: 1-2 month). The estrous cycle was determined by macroscopic examination and to age the fetus crown-rump length measurement was applied. A total of 9 corpora lutea from individual animals were included in the study, three corpora lutea for each group. MiRNAs population was profiled using small RNA next-generation sequencing and biologically significant miRNAs were evaluated for their differential expression using the DESeq2-methodology. We show that 6 differentially expressed miRNAs (bta-mir-2890, -2332, -2441-3p, -148b, -1248 and -29c) are common to both comparisons, P vs C13 and P vs C18. While for each stage individually we have identified unique miRNAs differentially expressed only for the given comparison. bta-miR-23a and -769 were unique miRNAs differentially expressed in P vs C13, whereas forty-four unique miRNAs were identified as differentially expressed in P vs C18. These data confirm that miRNAs are highly abundant in luteal tissue during early pregnancy and potentially regulate the CL maintenance at this stage of fetus development.

Keywords: bovine, corpus luteum, microRNA, pregnancy, RNA-Seq

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