Search results for: Chinese learners of Japanese

Authors: Michael Lousis

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This research study is concerned with learner’s errors on Arithmetic and Algebra. The data resulted from a broader international comparative research program called Kassel Project. However, its conceptualisation differed from and contrasted with that of the main program, which was mostly based on socio-demographic data. The way in which the research study was conducted, was not dependent on the researcher’s discretion, but was absolutely dictated by the nature of the problem under investigation. This is because the phenomenon of learners’ mathematical errors is due neither to the intentions of learners nor to institutional processes, rules and norms, nor to the educators’ intentions and goals; but rather to the way certain information is presented to learners and how their cognitive apparatus processes this information. Several approaches for the study of learners’ errors have been developed from the beginning of the 20th century, encompassing different belief systems. These approaches were based on the behaviourist theory, on the Piagetian- constructivist research framework, the perspective that followed the philosophy of science and the information-processing paradigm. The researcher of the present study was forced to disclose the learners’ course of thinking that led them in specific observable actions with the result of showing particular errors in specific problems, rather than analysing scripts with the students’ thoughts presented in a written form. This, in turn, entailed that the choice of methods would have to be appropriate and conducive to seeing and realising the learners’ errors from the perspective of the participants in the investigation. This particular fact determined important decisions to be made concerning the selection of an appropriate framework for analysing the mathematical errors and giving explanations. Thus the rejection of the belief systems concerning behaviourism, the Piagetian-constructivist, and philosophy of science perspectives took place, and the information-processing paradigm in conjunction with the philosophy of mind were adopted as a general account for the elaboration of data. This paper explains why these decisions were appropriate and beneficial for conducting the present study and for the establishment of the ensued thesis. Additionally, the reasons for the adoption of the information-processing paradigm in conjunction with the philosophy of mind give sound and legitimate bases for the development of future studies concerning mathematical error analysis are explained.

Keywords: advantages-disadvantages of theoretical prospects, behavioral prospect, critical evaluation of theoretical prospects, error analysis, information-processing paradigm, opting for the appropriate approach, philosophy of science prospect, Piagetian-constructivist research frameworks, review of research in mathematical errors

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Authors: Fu Jiayan, Wang Zhu, Sun Jiaojiao

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Mixed-use development is one of the most important trends in new island house transformation along southeast coastal area in China. Unique island geographical environment and profound fishing village culture coexist for a long time in this. With artistic creation for the purpose of the "live-work" houses are in a large number of emergence, however, still lack of systematic strategy. Based on space effect from marine resources to regional human settlements, this article teases out the evolution regularity of island settlement context and architectural form, then, puts forward the formation mechanism and construction model of art island houses. Thereby, to further explore space design method and site creation strategy of mixed-use development.

Keywords: mixed-use, island house, art creation, Southeast Coastal Area of Chinese

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Authors: Kate L. Yusi

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This paper is an attempt to theoretically reframe the act of self-immolation beyond violence/non-violence discourse, to differentiate it from other paradigmatic examples of necropolitical activism like suicide bombing, in order to highlight its particular ontopolitical statement in relation to life and death and to re-energize its deactivating power. In this paper, the writer seeks to focus on self-immolation by Tibetan monks and other activists against Chinese imperialism, its continuing ethnic cleansing of the Tibetan people, forced assimilation, and territorial occupation. Here, the main driving force is this question: what does self-immolation mean to a people who are forced to live in deathspace? In other words, if one is reduced to nothingness that their deaths (as is their lives) become insignificant, in what ways does the reclamation of death/dying become a “way out” of this state-imposed enclave of death? To answer these questions, the writer engages with and put in conversation the works of Achille Mbembe, Elias Cannetti, and Giorgio Agamben.

Keywords: necropolitics, self immolation, tibetan people, chinese imperialism

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Authors: Ola I. S. El Dardery, Ismail Gomaa, Adel R.M. Rayan, Ghada El Khayat, Sara H. Sabry

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Continuous improvement activities are becoming a key factor of the success of any organization, those improvement activities include but not limited to kaizen, six sigma, lean projects, and continuous improvement projects. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement by making small incremental changes to improve an organization’s performance, reduce costs, reduce delay time, reduce waste in production, etc. This study aims at proposing a new measuring technique for kaizen activities using a Sustainable balanced scorecard structure. A survey questionnaire was developed and introduced to kaizen participants in both Egypt and Japan with the purpose of allocating key performance indicators for both kaizen process (critical success factors) and result (kaizen benefits) into the five perspectives of sustainable balanced scorecard. The study contributes to the literature by presenting a new kaizen measurement of both kaizen process and results, that will illuminate the benefits of using kaizen. Also, the presented measurement can help in the sustainability of kaizen implementation. Determining the combination of the proper kaizen measures could be used by any industry whether service or manufacturing to better measure kaizen activates. The comparison between Japanese measures, as the leaders of kaizen philosophy, and Egyptian measures will help recommending better practices of kaizen in Egypt, and contributing to the 2030 sustainable development goals.

Keywords: continuous improvements, kaizen, performance, sustainable balanced scorecard

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Authors: Prakash Singh

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In this exploratory qualitative case study, the voices of female teachers are captured that describe their fear of failure in coping with their daily anxieties, stresses, and tensions in their classrooms. When teachers are usually appointed, the curriculum forms the heart of all their professional obligations. The policy of quality and equality of education for all learners is a must as part of these deliberations, otherwise it would spell the inevitable failure for teachers. Yet, how often have teachers been asked whether they are happy during their professional tenure. Research affirms that this question is not a priority, seeing that the happiness of learners and the educational administrators enjoy precedence. Teachers are often subject to undue pressures and tensions because of environmental factors that extends beyond the curriculum. School violence, bullying, drug abuse, and gangsters are not uncommon to the school milieu, no matter where such schools can be located. In this case study, the voices of female teachers find space concerning their experiences of tobephobia (TBP). The questions that inevitably arise are: Are the educational authorities aware of the effects of TBP in education? What can be done to arrest and eliminate the debilitating effects of TBP? This exploratory study contributes to the growing concerns of TBP in education. It is therefore imperative that the effects of TBP on human resources in education must be accentuated so that meaningful solutions can be found to address challenging educational issues such as school violence, bullying, and drug abuse amongst learners.

Keywords: curriculum, female teachers, school violence, tobephobia

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Authors: Yijie Wang, Tianyue Wang

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In the past two decades, there has been a great ‘piano lesson frenzy’ among Chinese middle-class families, with a large number of parents adding piano training to children’s extra-curriculum lists. Superficially, the frenzy reflects a rather ‘leisurely’ attitude: parents typically claim that pianos lessons are ‘just for fun’ and will hopefully render children’s life more exciting. However, a closer scrutiny reveals that there is great social-status anxiety hidden beneath this ‘leisurely’ surface. Based on pre-interviews of six Chinese middle-class parents who have enthusiastically signed their children up for piano lessons, several tentative analysis are made: 1. Owing to a series of historical and social factors, the Chinese middle-class have yet to establish their cultural norms in the past few decades, resulting in great confusion concerning how to cultivate cultural tastes in their offspring. And partly due to the fact that the middle-class status of the past Chinese generation is mostly self-acquired rather than inherited, parents are much less confident about their cultural resources—which require long-time accumulation—than material ones. Both factors combine to lead to a sort of blind, overcompensating enthusiasm in culture-related education, and the piano frenzy is but a demonstration. 2. The piano has been chosen to be the object of the frenzy partly because of its inherent characteristics as well as socially-constructed ones. Costly, large in size, imported from another culture and so forth, the piano has acquired the meaning of being exclusive, high-end and exotic, which renders it a token of top-tier status among Chinese people, and piano lessons for offspring have therefore become parents’ paths towards a kind of ‘symbolic elevation’. A child playing piano is an exhibition as well as psychological assurance of the families’ middle-class status. 3. A closer look at children’s piano training process reveals that there is much more anxiety than leisurely elements involved. Despite parents’ claim that ‘piano is mainly for kids to have fun,’ the whole process is evidently of a rather ‘ascetic’ nature, with the demands of diligence and senses of time urgency throughout, and techniques rather than flair or styles are emphasized. This either means that the apparent ‘piano-for-fun’ stance is unauthentic and is only other motives in disguise, or that the Chinese middle-class parents are not yet capable of shaking off the sense of anxiety even if they sincerely intend to. 4. When viewed in relation to Chinese formal school system as well as the job market at large, it can be said that by signing children up for piano lessons, parents are consciously or unconsciously seeking to prepare for, or reduce the risks of, their children’s future social mobility. In face of possible failures in the highly-crucial, highly-competitive formal school system, piano-playing as an extra-curriculum activity may be conveniently transferred into an alternative career path. Besides, in contemporary China, as the occupational structure goes through change, and the school-related certificates decline in value, aspects such as a person’s overall deportment, which can be gained or proved by piano-learning, have been gaining in significance.

Keywords: extra-curriculum activities, middle class, piano lesson frenzy, status anxiety

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Authors: Hyo Jung Lee

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The purpose of this study is to develop a literature appreciation education program for classic literatures and apply them to the field, and to derive the achievements and improvement points. Classic literature is a work of value recognized in the context of literature history and culture history, and learners can develop interest in literature and inherit tradition through appreciation of classic literature. However, in Korean educational environment, classic literature is a means for college entrance examination, and many learners analyze contents and language in textbooks and concentrate on memorizing the whole plot. This study is one of the reasons that classic literature appreciation education is not done properly and it is not able to give an opportunity to appreciate the whole work in the early learning stage. In Korean primary education, classic literature is used as a means to achieve the goals of reading, writing, speaking and listening, rather than being used as a material for its own appreciation. It is problematic to make the piece appreciation experience fragmentary. This study proposes a program to experience classic literatures by linking school education and school library with primary school students in grades 4-6. We work with local primary schools (siheung-si, gyeonggi-do, Korea) to provide appropriate activities and rewards to learners, observe their participation, and introduce student learning outcomes. Through this, we are able to systematically improve the learner 's ability to appreciate the literature and to diversify primary education.

Keywords: classic literature education, primary education, out-of-school program, learning by appreciation experience

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Authors: Hidehiro Endo, Taizo Shigemichi

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Introduction & Objectives: In 2008, the revised course of study for elementary schools was published by MEXT, and from the beginning of the academic year of 2011-2012, foreign language activities (English lessons) became mandatory for 5th and 6th graders in Japanese elementary schools. Foreign language activities are currently offered once a week for approximately 50 minutes by elementary school teachers, assistant language teachers who are native speakers of English, volunteers, among others, with the purpose of helping children become accustomed to functional English. However, the new policy has disclosed a myriad of issues in conducting foreign language activities since the majority of the current elementary school teachers has neither English teaching experience nor English proficiency. Nevertheless, converting foreign language activities into English, as a subject in Japanese elementary schools (for 5th and 6th graders) from 2020 is what MEXT currently envisages with the purpose of reforming English education in Japan. According to their new proposal, foreign language activities will be mandatory for 3rd and 4th graders from 2020. Consequently, gaining better access to English learning opportunities becomes one of the primary concerns even in early childhood education. Thus, in this project, we aim to explore some nursery schools’ attempts at providing toddlers with online English lessons via Skype. The main purpose of this project is to look deeply into what roles online English lessons in the nursery schools play in guiding nursery school children to enjoy learning the English language as well as to acquire English communication skills. Research Methods: Setting; The main research site is a nursery school located in the northern part of Japan. The nursery school has been offering a 20-minute online English lesson via Skype twice a week to 7 toddlers since September 2015. The teacher of the online English lessons is a male person who lives in the Philippines. Fieldwork & Data; We have just begun collecting data by attending the Skype English lessons. Direct observations are the principal components of the fieldwork. By closely observing how the toddlers respond to what the teacher does via Skype, we examine what components stimulate the toddlers to pay attention to the English lessons. Preliminary Findings & Expected Outcomes: Although both data collection and analysis are ongoing, we found that the online English teacher remembers the first name of each toddler and calls them by their first name via Skype, a technique that is crucial in motivating the toddlers to actively participate in the lessons. In addition, when the teacher asks the toddlers the name of a plastic object such as grapes in English, the toddlers tend to respond to the teacher in Japanese. Accordingly, the effective use of Japanese in teaching English for nursery school children need to be further examined. The anticipated results of this project are an increased recognition of the significance of creating English language learning opportunities for nursery school children and a significant contribution to the field of early childhood education.

Keywords: teaching children, English education, early childhood education, nursery school

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Authors: Longtao He, Han Wu

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Summary: As the need for elder care increases in China due to a growing aging population and, in particular, rising cancer rates, it becomes increasingly important to also support family caregivers, who are often the main source of care. We used a qualitative meta-synthesis to systematically evaluate and integrate the caregiving experiences of family caregivers of elderly cancer patients as revealed by articles published in Chinese journals. Findings: Nine studies are included in the final analysis. The caregiver experiences they describe are synthesized into three primary themes: care needs, care burden, and care gains, with numerous secondary themes. Besides the findings that seem to align with other findings across cultures, we have highlighted three main discoveries from the synthesis that may be quite specific to the Chinese context: 1. more sub-themes related to specific caregiving skills caregivers of cancer patients; 2. a call for health professionals to improve their communication skills with family caregivers; 3. the important role of filial piety. Applications: Our findings can be used to help health social workers and relevant policymakers in China support family caregivers by identifying the education and training required for caregivers, ways to make the most of potential care gains, and ways to ease care burdens.

Keywords: cancer, Chinese family caregivers, caregiving skills, care burden, care gains, health social work

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Authors: Monica Karlsson

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The positive effect of a supportive written context on comprehension and retention when faced with a previously unknown idiomatic expression is today an indisputable fact, especially if relevant clues are given in close proximity of the item in question. Also, giving learners a chance of visualizing the meaning of an idiom by offering them its source domain and/or by elaborating etymologically, i.e. providing a mental picture in addition to the spoken/written form (referred to as dual coding), seems to enhance comprehension and retention even further, especially if the idiom is of a more transparent kind. For example, by explaining that walk the plank has a maritime origin and a canary in a coal mine comes from the time when canaries were kept in cages to warn miners if gas was leaking out at which point the canaries succumbed immediately, learners’ comprehension and retention have been shown to increase. The present study aims to investigate whether contextualization of an audiovisual kind could help increase comprehension and retention of L2 idioms. 40 Swedish first-term university students studying English as part of their education to become middle-school teachers participated in the investigation, which tested 24 idioms, all of which were ascertained to be previously unknown to the informants. While half of the learners were subjected to a test in which they were asked to watch scenes from various TV programmes, each scene including one idiomatic expression in a supportive context, the remaining 20 students, as a point of reference, were only offered written contexts, though equally supportive. Immediately after these sessions, both groups were given the same idioms in a decontextualized form and asked to give their meaning. After five weeks, finally, the students were subjected to yet another decontextualized comprehension test. Furthermore, since mastery of idioms in one’s L1 appears to correlate to a great extent with a person’s ability to comprehend idioms in an L2, all the informants were also asked to take a test focusing on idioms in their L1. The result on this test is thus seen to indicate each student’s potential for understanding and memorizing various idiomatic expressions from a more general perspective. Preliminary results clearly show that audiovisual contextualization indeed has a positive effect on learners’ retention. In addition, preliminary results also show that those learners’ who were able to recall most meanings were those who had a propensity for idiom comprehension in their L1.

Keywords: English, L2, idioms, audiovisual context

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Authors: Heide Imai

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Contemporary cities, especially in Japan, have reached an indescribable complexity and excessive, global investments blur formal, rooted structures. Modern urban agglomerations blindly trust a macro understanding, whereas everyday activities which portray the human degree of living space are being suppressed and erased. The paper will draw upon the approach ‘Micro-Urbanism’ which focus on the sensitive and indigenous side of contemporary cities, which in fact can hold the authentic qualities of a city. Related to this approach is the term ‘Micro-Culture’ which is used to clarify the inner realities of the everyday living space on the example of the Japanese urban backstreet. The paper identifies an example of a ‘micro-zone’ in terms of ‘street space’, originally embedded in the landscape of the Japanese city. And although the approach ‘Micro-Urbanism’ is more complex, the understanding of the term can be tackled by a social analysis of the street, as shown on the backstreet called roji and closely linked examples of ‘situated’ urban rituals like (1) urban festivities, (2) local markets/ street vendors and (3) artistic, intellectual tactics. Likewise, the paper offers insights in a ‘community of streets’ which boundaries are specially shaped by cultural activity and social networks.

Keywords: urban rituals, community, streets as micro-zone, everyday space

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Authors: Selifontova Darya Yurievna

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The study of the process of the emergence and evolution of socio-cultural ideas about the "Asian states" in the context of the development of US cinema in 1941-1945 will contribute both to the approbation of a new approach to the classical subject and will allow using the methodological tools of history, political science, philology, sociology for understanding modern military-political, historical, ideological, socio-cultural processes on a concrete example. This is especially important for understanding the process of constructing the image of the Japanese Empire in the USA. Assessments and images of China and Japan in World War II, created in American cinema, had an immediate impact on the media, public sentiment, and opinions. During the war, the US cinema created new myths and actively exploited old ones, combining them with traditional Hollywood cliches - all this served as a basis for creating the image of China and the Japanese Empire on the screen, which were necessary to solve many foreign policy and domestic political tasks related to the construction of two completely different, but at the same time, similar images of Asia (China and the Japanese Empire). In modern studies devoted to the history of wars, the study of the specifics of the information confrontation of the parties is in demand. A special role in this confrontation is played by propaganda through cinema, which uses images, historical symbols, and stable metaphors, the appeal to which can form a certain public reaction. Soviet documentaries of the war years are proof of this. The relevance of the topic is due to the fact that cinema as a means of propaganda was very popular and in demand during the Second World War. This period was the time of creation of real masterpieces in the field of propaganda films, in the documentary space of the cinema of 1941 – 1945. The traditions of depicting the Second World War were laid down. The study of the peculiarities of visualization and mythologization of the Second World War in Soviet cinema is the most important stage for studying the development of the specifics of propaganda methods since the methods and techniques of depicting the war formed in 1941-1945 are also significant at the present stage of the study of society.

Keywords: asian countries, politics, sociology, domestic politics, USA, cinema

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Authors: Jacqueline Żammit

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Online learning has become more popular as a substitute for traditional classroom instruction because of the COVID-19 epidemic. The study aimed to investigate how adult Maltese language learners evaluated the benefits and drawbacks of online instruction. 35 adult participants provided data through semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. NVivo software was used to analyze the interview data using the thematic analysis method in order to find themes and group the data based on common responses. The advantages of online learning that the participants mentioned included accessing subject content even without live learning sessions, balancing learning with household duties, and lessening vulnerability to problems like fatigue, time-wasting traffic, school preparation, and parking space constraints. Conversely, inadequate Internet access, inadequate IT expertise, a shortage of personal computers, and domestic distractions adversely affected virtual learning. Lack of an Internet connection, IT expertise, a personal computer, or a phone with Internet access caused inequality in access to online learning sessions. Participants thought online learning was a way to resume academic activity, albeit with drawbacks. In order to address the challenges posed by online learning, several solutions are proposed in the research's conclusion.

Keywords: adult learners, online education, e-learning, challenges of online learning, benefits ofonline learning

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Authors: Leila Najeh Bel'Kiry

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Artificial intelligence (AI) brought about many language robots, with ChatGPT being the most sophisticated thanks to its human-like linguistic capabilities. This aspect raises the idea of using ChatGPT in learning foreign languages. Starting from the premise that positions ChatGPT as a mediator between the language and the leaner, functioning as a “ghost teacher" offering a peaceful and secure learning space, this study aims to explore the attitudes of Tunisian students of English towards ChatGPT as a “Foreign Language Teacher” . Forty-five students, in their third year of fundamental English at Tunisian universities and high institutes, completed a Likert scale questionnaire consisting of thirty-two items and covering various aspects of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics). A scale ranging from 'Strongly Disagree,' 'Disagree,' 'Undecided,' 'Agree,' to 'Strongly Agree.' is used to assess the attitudes of the participants towards the integration of ChaGPTin learning a foreign language. Results indicate generally positive attitudes towards the reliance on ChatGPT in learning foreign languages, particularly some compounds of language like syntax, phonology, and morphology. However, learners show insecurity towards ChatGPT when it comes to pragmatics and semantics, where the artificial model may fail when dealing with deeper contextual and nuanced language levels.

Keywords: artificial language model, attitudes, foreign language learning, ChatGPT, linguistic capabilities, Tunisian English language learners

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Authors: Loghman Ansarian, Teoh Mei Lin

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In an attempt to increase oral proficiency of Iranian EFL learners, the researchers compared the effect of problem-based mobile-assisted language learning with the conventional language learning approach (Communicative Language Teaching) in Iran. The experimental group (n=37) went through PBL instruction and the control group (n=33) went through conventional instruction. The results of quantitative data analysis after 26 sessions of treatment revealed that PBL could positively affect participants' knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, spoken fluency, and pronunciation; however, in terms of task achievement, no significant effect was found. This study can have pedagogical implications for language teachers, and material developers.

Keywords: problem-based learning, spoken intelligibility, Iranian EFL context, cognitive learning

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Authors: Lorraine Ramos

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The question of heritage language learners in foreign language classrooms has been widely debated in second language education, especially with Spanish in a U.S. Instructors of Spanish as a foreign language have brought pedagogical focus to Spanish heritage language students in order to retain, develop and maintain their first language. This paper proposes a thorough examination of the use of conceptual metaphors within autobiographical linguistic narratives as a key indicator of the writing development of advanced Spanish-language students. By pairing genre theory from Systemic Functional Linguistics with metaphor theory, this paper will examine the metaphors used by 3rd and 4th year university Spanish students within the narrative genre from a corpus of 16, 091 words. The investigation has found that heritage language students use a variety of bicultural metaphors, transferred from both languages to conceptualize their linguistic development, in addition to using metaphor in specific narrative stages as a literary strategy. Since it has been found that the metaphors used were transcultural, the use of conceptual metaphors in heritage language learners can be further examined to help these students achieve their linguistic and academic goals in the Spanish by transferring from their knowledge in English. In conclusion, by closely examining the function of student discourse through their multicultural metaphoric competence, this study provides important insights on how to enable instructors to best further their students’ writing development in the target language.

Keywords: academic writing development, heritage language learners, language attitudes and ideologies, metaphor

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Authors: H. Kamide, T. Arai

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This study aims to clarify factors of courtesy to things and the effect of courtesy on a sense of unity with things based on the teaching of Buddha. The teaching of Buddha explains when dealing with things in a courteous manner carefully, the border between selves and the external world disappears, then both are united. This is an example in Buddhist way that explains the connections with all existences, and in the modern world, it is also a lesson that humans should not let matters go to waste and treat them politely. In order to reveal concrete ways to practice courtesy to things, we clarify the factors of courtesy (Study 1) and examine the effect of courtesy on the sense of unity with the things (Study 2). In Study 1, 100 Japanese (mean age=54.39, SD=15.04, 50% female) described freely about what is courtesy to things that they use daily. These descriptions were classified, and 25 items were made asking for the degree of courtesy to the things. Then different 678 Japanese (mean age=44.72, SD=13.14, 50% female) answered the 25 items on 7-point about tools they use daily. An exploratory factor analysis revealed two factors. The first factor (α=.97) includes 'I deal with the thing carefully' and 'I clean up the thing after use'. This factor reflects how gently people care about things. The second factor (α=.96) includes 'A sense of self-control has come to me through using the thing' and 'I have got inner strength by taking care of the thing'. The second factor reflects how people learn by dealing with things carefully. In this Study 2, 200 Japanese (mean age=49.39, SD=11.07, 50% female) answered courtesy about things they use daily and the degree of sense of unity with the things using the inclusion of other in the self scale, replacing 'Other' with 'Your thing'. The ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of courtesy (high/low level of two factors) on the score of sense of unity. The results showed the main effect of care level. People with a high level of care have a stronger sense of unity with the thing. The tendency of an interaction effect is also found. The condition with a high level of care and a high level of learning enhances the sense of unity more than the condition of a low level of care and high level in learning. Study 1 found that courtesy is composed of care and learning. That is, courtesy is not only active care to the things but also to learn the meaning of the things and grow personally with the things. Study 2 revealed that people with a high level of care feel a stronger sense of unity and also people with both a high level of care and learn tend to do so. The findings support the idea of the teaching of Buddha. In the future, it is necessary to examine a combined effect of care and learning.

Keywords: courtesy, things, sense of unity, the teaching of Buddha

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Authors: Yuhan Wu, CTB (Kees) Ahaus, Martina Buljac-Samardzic

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Patient aggression and violence is a complex occupational hazards for physicians working in hospitals, and it can have multiple severe negative effects for physicians and hospitals. Although there is a range of interventions in the healthcare sector applied in various countries, China lacks a comprehensive set of interventions at the hospital level in this area. Therefore, due to cultural differences, this study investigates whether international interventions are important and feasible in the Chinese cultural context by conducting a Delphi study. Based on a literature search, a list of 47 hospital interventions to prevent and manage patient aggression and violence was constructed, including 8 categories: hospital environment design, access and entrance, staffing and work practice, training and education, leadership and culture, support, during/after-the-event actions, and hospital policy. The list of interventions will be refined, extended and brought back during a three-round Delphi study. The panel consists of 17 Chinese experts, including physicians experiencing patient aggression and violence, hospital management team members, scientists working in this research area, and policymakers in the healthcare sector. In each round, experts will receive the possible interventions with the instruction to indicate the importance and feasibility of each intervention for preventing and managing patient violence and aggression in Chinese hospitals. Experts will be asked about the importance and feasibility of interventions for patient violence and aggression at the same time. This study will exclude or include interventions based on the score of importance. More specifically, an intervention will be included after each round if >80% of the experts judged it as important or very important and excluded if >50% judged an intervention as not or moderately important. The three-round Delphi study will provide a list of included interventions and assess which of the 8 categories of interventions are considered as important. It is expected that this study can bring new ideas and inspiration to Chinese hospitals in the prevention and management of patient aggression and violence.

Keywords: patient aggression and violence, hospital interventions, feasibility, importance

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Authors: Mine Cekin

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Self-regulated learning (SRL), which can be defined as learning that takes place when an individual is an active controller over his cognition, behavior, and motivation in the learning process, seems to be an essential educational goal. However, it is asserted that students need an assistance to become self-regulated learners. Therefore, teachers appear to play an important role in the introduction of SRL. Even though the importance of SRL has been shown by many researchers, the issue of how teachers can introduce it in a classroom environment needs to be investigated thoroughly. When it comes to mathematics learning particularly, it seems really difficult to associate this area with self-regulated learning because of the fact that it is mainly seen as a domain that is overwhelmingly memorizing written notations. As a result, self-regulated learning in mathematics education and what roles teachers have seem to deserve a significant attention. In this study, the significance of SRL and the roles of teachers in promoting SRL in the field of mathematics education particularly with the help of current literature have been highlighted. Some of the roles of teachers are becoming self-regulated learners themselves, facilitating motivation and collaboration with their colleagues in their schools.

Keywords: mathematics education, motivation, self-regulated learning, teacher self-regulation

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Authors: Christopher Celozzi, Sarah Kochav

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Our research investigates the numerous challenges faced by Chinese ESL university students enrolled in the medical and related healthcare professional fields. The over-arching research question is how gender influences classroom participation and learning. The second research question addressed is 'what instructional strategies may be utilized to promote student participation and language acquisition?'. Participants’ language ability has been assessed and evaluated in order to facilitate the establishment of a statistical baseline for the subsequent intervention. This research delves deeper into each individual’s personal and academic circumstances, in an effort to reveal any held intrinsic gender beliefs and social identities that may influence learning. Also considered is the impact on learning for a homogenized student population within a uniform, highly structured learning environment. Specially, what is the influence of China’s ‘one-child policy’ on individual learning habits? The impact of their millennial identity and reliance on social media is also examined. A qualitative methodology with a case study approach is employed, with interviews conducted among the participants. Student response to the intervention and selected remediation strategies are documented, analyzed and discussed. The findings of the study may serve to inform educator instructional practice, while advancing the student learner in their pursuit of English competency in highly competitive professions.

Keywords: Chinese students, gender, English, language acquisition

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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: Hande Ünlü, Yu Morishita

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The total area of forest land in Japan accounts for 67% of the national land; however, despite this wealth and hundred years history of silviculture, today Japanese forestry faces socio-economic stagnation in forestry. While the growing gap in the people-forest relationship causes the depopulation of many forest villages, this paper introduces a methodology aiming to develop a place-specific approach in revitalizing this relationship. The paper focuses on a case study from Taiki town in the Hokkaido region to analyze the place's specific socio-economic requirements through interviews and workshops with the local experts, researchers, and stakeholders. Based on the analyzed facts, a master outline of design requirements is developed to produce locally sourced architectural embodiments that aim to act as a unifying element between the forests and the people of Taiki town. In parallel, the proposed methodology aims to generate a cycle of research feed and a researcher retreat, a definition given by Memu Earth Lab to the researchers' stay at Memu in Taiki town for a defined period to analyze local resources, for the continuous improvement of the introduced methodology to revitalize the interaction between people and forest through architecture.

Keywords: architecture, Japanese forestry, local timber, people-forest relationship, research platform

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Authors: Xinyue Ma, Dishen Zhang, Yijun Liu, Yutian Jiang, Huiyan Yu, Chufeng Gu

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Conformity is defined as one in a social group changing his or her behavior to match the others’ behavior in the group. It is used to find that people show a higher level of online conformity behavior than offline. However, as anonymity can decrease the level of online conformity behavior, the difference between online and offline conformity behavior among Chinese college students still needs to be tested. In this study, college students (N = 60) have been randomly assigned into three groups: control group, offline experimental group, and online experimental group. Through comparing the results of offline experimental group and online experimental group with the Mann-Whitney U test, this study verified the results of Asch’s experiment, and found out that people show a lower level of online conformity behavior than offline, which contradicted the previous finding found in China. These results can be used to explain why some people make a lot of vicious remarks and radical ideas on the Internet but perform normally in their real life: the anonymity of the network makes the online group pressure less than offline, so people are less likely to conform to social norms and public opinions on the Internet. What is more, these results support the importance and relevance of online voting, because fewer online group pressures make it easier for people to expose their true ideas, thus gathering more comprehensive and truthful views and opinions.

Keywords: anonymity, Asch’s group conformity, Chinese college students, online conformity

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Authors: Chu-Ching Hsu

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This paper focuses on how the government-led language policies and the political changes in Taiwan manipulate the languages choice in translations and what translation strategies are employed by the translator to show his or her language ideology behind the power struggles and decision-making. Therefore, framed by Lefevere’s theoretical concept of translating as rewriting, and carried out a diachronic and chronological study, this paper specifically sets out to investigate the language ideology and translator’s idiolect of Chinese language translations of Anglo-American novels. The examples drawn to explore these issues were taken from different versions of Chinese renditions of Mark Twain’s English-language novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in which there are several different dialogues originally written in the colloquial language and dialect used in the American state of Mississippi and reproduced in Mark Twain’s works. Also, adapted corpus methodology, many examples are extracted as instances from the translated texts and source text, to illuminate how the translators in Taiwan deal with the dialectal features encoded in Twain’s works, and how different versions of Chinese translations are employed by Taiwanese translators to confirm the language polices and to express their language identity textually in different periods of the past five decades, from the 1960s onward. The finding of this study suggests that the use of Taiwanese dialect and language patterns in translations does relate to the movement of the mother-tongue language and language ideology of the translator as well as to the issue of language identity raised in the island of Taiwan. Furthermore, this study confirms that the change of political power in Taiwan does bring significantly impact in language policy-- assimilationism, pluralism or multiculturalism, which also makes Taiwan from a monolingual to multilingual society, where the language ideology and identity can be revealed not only in people’s daily communication but also in written translations.

Keywords: language politics and policies, literary translation, mother-tongue, multiculturalism, translator’s ideology

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Authors: Judith Sue Hwa Joo

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Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit), the Bodhisattva of Mercy and Compassion, is the most widely worshipped Buddhist Divinity in Chinese societies and is also believed by more than half of Asian populations across various countries. The most overwhelming reason for the popularity of Guanyin in Chinese societies is, according to the Lotus Sutra, that Guanyin would apperceive voices of those suffering from immense afflictions and troubles, and liberate them upon crying for his/her holy name with wholeheartedness. Its pervasive social influence has spanned more than two thousand years and is still deeply affecting the lives of most Chinese people. This study aimed to investigate whether Guanyin Worship has evolved and changed in modern Chinese societies across the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan and China, albeit having the same language and culture, have been territorially divided and governed by two different political regimes for over 70 years. It would be scientifically intriguing to unveil any substantial changes in religious behaviors in the context of Guanyin Worship. A comprehensive anonymous questionnaire survey in Chinese communities was conducted from October 2017 to May 2019 across various countries, mostly in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong areas. Since the religious survey is officially prohibited in China, the study was difficult and could only be exercised by means of snowball sampling. Demographic data (age, sex, education, religious belief) were registered and Guanyin’s salvation functions under various confronting situations were investigated. Psychological dimensions of religious belief in Guanyin were probed in terms of the worship experience, the willingness of veneration, and egoistic or altruistic ideations. A literature review on documented functional attributes was carried out in parallel for comparison analyses with traditional roles. Effective 1123 out of 1139 samples were obtained. Statistical analysis revealed that Guanyin Worship is still commonly practiced and deeply rooted in the hearts of all Chinese people regardless of gender, age, education, and residential area, even though they may not enshrine Guanyin at home nowadays. The conventional roles of Guanyin Bodhisattva are still valid and best satisfy the real interests of lifestyles in modern times. When comparing the traditional Buddhist Sutra and the documented literature, the divine power of modern Guanyin has notably empowered to recover, protect and transform fetal and infant spirits due to the sexual liberation, increased abortion rate, gender awakening and enhanced female autonomy in the reproductive decision. However, the One-Child policy may have critically impacted the trajectory of Guanyin Worship so that people in China prevail over those in Taiwan praying for aborted lives or premature deaths. Furthermore, particularly in Hong Kong and Macao, Guanyin not only serves as the sea guardian for the fishermen but also additional services a new function as the God of Wealth. The divine powers and salvation functions of Guanyin are indeed evolving and expanding to comply with the modern psychosocial, cultural and societal needs. This study sheds light on the modernization process of the two-thousand-year-old Guanyin Worship of contemporary Chinese societies.

Keywords: Buddhism, Guanyin, religious behavior, salvation function

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Authors: Yuki Matsumoto, Yuma Ishimoto

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Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) with children has shown effective application to various problems such as anxiety and depression. Although there are barriers to access to mental health services including lack of professional services in communities and parental concerns about stigma, school has a significant role to address children’s health problems. Schools are regarded as a suitable arena for prevention and early intervention of mental health problems. In this line, CBT can be adaptable to school education and useful to enhance students’ social and emotional skills. However, Japanese school curriculum is rigorous so as to limit available time for implementation of CBT in schools. This paper describes Brief Cognitive Behavior Therapy (BCBT) with children in a Japanese school setting. The program has been developed in order to facilitate acceptability of CBT in schools and aimed to enhance students’ skills to manage anxiety and difficult behaviors. The present research used a single arm design in which 30 students aged 9-10 years old participated. The authors provided teachers a CBT training workshop (two hours) at two primary schools in Tokyo metropolitan area and recruited participants in the research. A homeroom teacher voluntarily delivered a 6-session BCBT program (15 minutes each) in classroom periods which is called as Kaerinokai, a meeting before leaving school. Students completed a questionnaire sheet at pre- and post-periods under the supervision of the teacher. The sheet included the Spence Child Anxiety Scale (SCAS), the Depression Self-Rating Scale for Children (DSRS), and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The teacher was asked for feedback after the completion. Significant positive changes were found in the total and five of six sub-scales of the SCAS and the total difficulty scale of the SDQ. However, no significant changes were seen in Physical Injury Fear sub-scale of the SCAS, in the DSRS or the Prosocial sub-scale of the SDQ. The effect sizes are mostly between small and medium. The teacher commented that the program was easy to use and found positive changes in classroom activities and personal relationships. This preliminary research showed the feasibility of the BCBT in a school setting. The results suggest that the BCBT offers effective treatment for reduction in anxiety and in difficult behaviors. There is a good prospect of the BCBT suggesting that BCBT may be easier to be delivered than CBT by Japanese teachers to promote child mental health. The study has limitations including no control group, small sample size, or a short teacher training. Future research should address these limitations.

Keywords: brief cognitive behavior therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, mental health services in schools, teacher training workshop

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Authors: Elson Szeto

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Over the past 15 years, digital technology has ubiquitously penetrated societies around the world. New values of e-learning are emerging in the preparation of future talents, while e-learning is a key driver of widening participation and knowledge transfer in Chinese higher education. As a vibrant, Chinese society in Asia, Hong Kong’s new generation university students, perhaps the digital natives, have been learning with e-learning since their basic education. They can acquire new knowledge with the use of different forms of e-learning as a generic competence. These students who embrace this competence further their study journeys in higher education. This project reviews the Government’s policy of Information Technology in Education which has largely put forward since 1998. So far, primary to secondary education has embraced advantages of e-learning capability to advance the learning of different subject knowledge. Yet, e-learning capacity in higher education is yet to be fully examined in Hong Kong. The study reported in this paper is a pilot investigation into e-learning capacity in Chinese higher education in the region. By conducting a qualitative case study of Hong Kong, the investigation focuses on (1) the institutional ICT settings in general; (2) the pedagogic responses to e-learning in specific; and (3) the university students’ satisfaction of e-learning. It is imperative to revisit the e-learning capacity for promoting effective learning amongst university students, supporting new knowledge acquisition and embracing new opportunities in the 21st century. As a pilot case study, data will be collected from individual interviews with the e-learning management team members of a university, teachers who use e-learning for teaching and students who attend courses comprised of e-learning components. The findings show the e-learning capacity of the university and the key components of leveraging e-learning capability as a university-wide learning settings. The findings will inform institutions’ senior management, enabling them to effectively enhance institutional e-learning capacity for effective learning and teaching and new knowledge acquisition. Policymakers will be aware of new potentials of e-learning for the preparation of future talents in this society at large.

Keywords: capability, e-learning, higher education, student learning

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Authors: Ryotaro Ishikawa

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INTRODUCTION: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric label for a collection of psychological symptoms following a traumatic event. PTSD is as a result of a traumatic experience such as rape or sexual assault. A victim may have PTSD if she/he has experienced the following symptoms for at least a month: a) Stressor, b) Intrusion symptoms, c) Avoidance, d) Negative alterations in cognitions and mood, e) Alterations in arousal and reactivity. Studies on the cognitive theory of PTSD emphasized the roles of (a) negative appraisals of trauma memories in maintaining the symptomatology of PTSD, and (b) disorganized trauma memories in the development of PTSD. Mental contamination is primarily caused by experiences involving humans (e.g. violators or perpetrators) as opposed to substances (e.g. dirt or bodily fluids). Feelings of mental contamination may evoke following experiences of ill-treatment, sexual assault, domination, degradation, manipulation, betrayal, or humiliation. Some studies have demonstrated that traumatic thoughts related to sexual assault are particularly strong predictors of mental contamination. Treatment protocols based on cognitive-behavioral therapy appear to be beneficial in reducing the severity of PTSD and mental contamination. Studies on the cognitive theory of PTSD emphasized the roles of (A) negative appraisals of trauma memories in maintaining the symptomatology of PTSD, and (B) disorganized trauma memories in the development of PTSD. We will demonstrate a feasibility study of individual CBT for PTSD and mental contamination in Japanese clinical settings. METHOD: The single-arm trial is a group setting CBT intervention. The primary outcome is the self-rated Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale, with secondary measurements of depressive severity and mental pollution questionnaire. Assessments are conducted at baseline, after a waiting period before CBT, during CBT, and after CBT. RESULTS: Participants are eligible for the study and complete the outcome measures at all assessment points. In our hypothesis, receiving CBT would lead to improvements in primary and secondary PTSD severity. CONCLUSION: We will demonstrate a feasibility study of individual CBT for PTSD and mental contamination in Japanese clinical settings. Our treatment would achieve favorable treatment outcomes for PTSD with mental contamination in Japanese clinical settings.

Keywords: CBT, cognitive theory, PTSD, mental pollution

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Authors: Qin Long, Li Xiaoge

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The Knowledge Graphs have now become a new form of knowledge representation. However, there is no consensus in regard to a plausible and definition of entities and relationships in the domain-specific knowledge graph. Further, in conjunction with several limitations and deficiencies, various domain-specific entities and relationships recognition approaches are far from perfect. Specifically, named entity recognition in Chinese domain is a critical task for the natural language process applications. However, a bottleneck problem with Chinese named entity recognition in new domains is the lack of annotated data. To address this challenge, a domain distant supervised named entity recognition framework is proposed. The framework is divided into two stages: first, the distant supervised corpus is generated based on the entity linking model of graph attention neural network; secondly, the generated corpus is trained as the input of the distant supervised named entity recognition model to train to obtain named entities. The link model is verified in the ccks2019 entity link corpus, and the F1 value is 2% higher than that of the benchmark method. The re-pre-trained BERT language model is added to the benchmark method, and the results show that it is more suitable for distant supervised named entity recognition tasks. Finally, it is applied in the computer field, and the results show that this framework can obtain domain named entities.

Keywords: distant named entity recognition, entity linking, knowledge graph, graph attention neural network

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Authors: Xiaoli Tian

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The recent growing interest in and use of complementary and alternative medicine is a global phenomenon. In many regions, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), an important type of complementary and alternative medicine, has been formally integrated into the healthcare system. Consequently, today’s doctors face increasing requests and questions from patients regarding TCM. However, studies of TCM focus either on patients’ approaches to TCM and Western medicine (WM) or on the politics involved in the institutionalization of TCM. To our knowledge, sociological studies on doctors’ attitudes toward TCM are rare. This paper compares the receptivity of WM-trained Chinese doctors to TCM in Hong Kong and mainland China, in order to evaluate the interplay between professional training and dominant medical paradigms, on the one hand, and institutional legitimacy and government and client pressures to accept TCM, on the other. Based on survey and in-depth interviews with Western-medicine doctors in Hong Kong and mainland China, this research finds that: there is major difference between Western-medicine doctors’ attitude toward traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in Hong Kong and mainland China. Doctors in Hong Kong are still suspicious toward TCM, no matter if they have exposure to TCM or not. Even some doctors who have much knowledge about TCM, such as got a diploma or certificate in TCM or tried TCM themselves, are still suspicious. This is because they hold up to the ideal of 'evidence-based medicine' and emphasize the kind of evidence based on randomized controlled trial (RCT). To Western medicine doctors in Hong Kong, this is the most reliable type of evidence for any medical practice, but it is lacking in TCM. This is the major reason why they do not trust TCM and would not refer patients to TCM in clinical practices. In contrast, western medicine doctors in mainland China also know about randomized controlled trial (RCT) and believe that’s the most reliable evidence, but they tend to think experience-based evidence is also reliable. On this basis, they think TCM also has clinical effectiveness. Research findings reveal that legitimacy based on institutional arrangements is a relevant factor, but how doctors understand their professional boundaries also play an important role. Doctors in Hong Kong are more serious about a strict professional boundary between Western medicine and TCM because they benefited from it, such as a very prestigious status and high income. Doctors in mainland China tend to be flexible about professional boundaries because they never benefited from a well-defined strict professional boundary. This is related to a long history of the lack of professionalism in China but is also aggravated by the increasing state support of TCM.

Keywords: evidence-based decision-making, institutional legitimacy, professional behavior, traditional Chinese medicine

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