Search results for: learning Maltese as a second language

Authors: Jane-Francis A. Abongdia, Thandiswa Mpiti

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There is an international concern to develop children’s literacy skills. In many parts of the world, the need to become fluent in a second language is essential for gaining meaningful access to education, the labour market and broader social functioning. In spite of these efforts, the problem still continues. The level of English language proficiency is far from satisfactory and these goals are unattainable by others. The issue is more complex in South Africa as learners are immersed in a second language (L2) curriculum. South Africa is a prime example of a country facing the dilemma of how to effectively equip a majority of its population with English as a second language or first additional language (FAL). Given the multilingual nature of South Africa with eleven official languages, and the position and power of English, the study investigates teachers’ and learners’ experiences on isiXhosa and Afrikaans background learners’ writing in English First Additional Language (EFAL). Moreover, possible causes of writing difficulties and teacher’s practices for writing are explored. The theoretical and conceptual framework for the study is provided by studies on constructivist theories and sociocultural theories. In exploring these issues, a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis were adopted. This data is analysed by critical discourse analysis (CDA). The study identified a weak correlation between teachers’ beliefs and their actual teaching practices. Although the teachers believe that writing is as important as listening, speaking, reading, grammar and vocabulary, and that it needs regular practice, the data reveal that they fail to put their beliefs into practice. Moreover, the data revealed that learners were disturbed by their home language because when they do not know a word they would write either the isiXhosa or the Afrikaans equivalent. Code-switching seems to have instilled a sense of “dependence on translations” where some learners would not even try to answer English questions but would wait for the teacher to translate the questions into isiXhosa or Afrikaans before they could attempt to give answers. The findings of the study show a marked improvement in the writing performance of learners who used the process approach in writing. These findings demonstrate the need for assisting teachers to shift away from focusing only on learners’ performance (testing and grading) towards a stronger emphasis on the process of writing. The study concludes that the process approach to writing could enable teachers to focus on the various parts of the writing process which can give more freedom to learners to experiment their language proficiency. It would require that teachers develop a deeper understanding of the process/genre approaches to teaching writing advocated by CAPS. All in all, the study shows that both learners and teachers face numerous challenges relating to writing. This means that more work still needs to be done in this area. The present study argues that teachers teaching EFAL learners should approach writing as a critical and core aspect of learners’ education. Learners should be exposed to intensive writing activities throughout their school years.

Keywords: constructivism, English second language, language of learning and teaching, writing

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Authors: Upeksha Jayasuriya

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The sudden transition from onsite to online teaching/learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic called for a need to incorporate feasible as well as effective methods of online teaching in most developing countries like Sri Lanka. The English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom faces specific challenges in this adaptation, and teaching writing can be identified as the most challenging task compared to teaching the other three skills. This study was therefore carried out to explore the challenges of teaching writing online and to provide effective means of overcoming them while taking into consideration the attitudes of students and teachers with regard to learning/teaching English writing via online platforms. A survey questionnaire was distributed (electronically) among 60 students from the University of Colombo, the University of Kelaniya, and The Open University in order to find out the challenges faced by students, while in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 lecturers from the mentioned universities. The findings reveal that the inability to observe students’ writing and to receive real-time feedback discourage students from engaging in writing activities when taught online. It was also discovered that both students and teachers increasingly prefer Google Slides over other platforms such as Padlet, Linoit, and Jam Board as it boosts learner autonomy and student-teacher interaction, which in turn allows real-time formative feedback, observation of student work, and assessment. Accordingly, it can be recommended that teaching writing online can be better facilitated by using interactive platforms such as Google Slides, for it promotes active learning and student engagement in the ESL class.

Keywords: ESL, teaching writing, online teaching, active learning, student engagement

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Authors: Ann-May Marais

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South African higher education institutions are following the global adoption of a blended approach to teaching and learning. Blended learning is viewed as a transformative teaching-learning approach, as it provides students with the optimum experience by mixing the best of face-to-face and online learning. Although academics realise the benefits of blended learning, they find it challenging and time-consuming to implement blended strategies. Professional development is a critical component of the adoption of higher education teaching-learning approaches. The Institutional course for higher education academics offered at a South African University was designed in a blended model, implemented and evaluated. This paper reports on a study that investigated the experiences of academics on the blended approach used during the induction course. A qualitative design-based research methodology was employed, and data was collected using participant feedback and document analysis. The data gathered from each of the four ICNL offerings were used to inform the design of the next course. Findings indicated that lecturers realised that blended learning could cater to student diversity, different learning styles, engagement, and innovation. Furthermore, it emerged that the course has to cater for diversity in technology proficiency and readiness of participants. Participants also require ongoing support in technology usage and discipline-specific blended learning workshops. This paper contends that the modelling of a blended approach to professional development can be an effective way to motivate academics to apply blended learning in their teaching-learning experiences.

Keywords: blended learning, professional development, induction course, integration of technology

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Authors: Liang Wang, Wei Zhang

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There have been some existing researches on design-based engineering learning (DBEL) and project-based or problem-based engineering learning (PBEL). Those findings have greatly promoted the reform of engineering education in China. However, the engineering with a big E means that more and more engineering activities are designed and operated by communities of practice (CoPs), namely community-based engineering learning. However, whether community-based engineering learning can promote students' innovation has not been verified in published articles. This study fills this gap by investigating the relationship between community-based learning approach and students’ creativity, using engineering identity as an intermediary variable. The goal of this study is to discover the core features of community-based engineering learning, and make the features more beneficial for students’ creativity. The study created and adapted open survey items from previously published studies and a scale on learning community, students’ creativity and engineering identity. Firstly, qualitative content analysis methods by MAXQDA were used to analyze 32 open-ended questionnaires. Then the authors collected data (n=322) from undergraduate students in engineering competition teams and engineering laboratories in Zhejiang University, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to understand the relationship between different factors. The study finds: (a) community-based engineering learning has four main elements like real-task context, self-inquiry learning, deeply-consulted cooperation and circularly-iterated design, (b) community-based engineering learning can significantly enhance the engineering undergraduate students’ creativity, and (c) engineering identity partially moderated the relationship between community-based engineering learning and undergraduate students' creativity. The findings further illustrate the value of community-based engineering learning for undergraduate students. In the future research, the authors should further clarify the core mechanism of community-based engineering learning, and pay attention to the cultivation of undergraduate students’ engineer identity in learning community.

Keywords: community-based engineering learning, students' creativity, engineering identity, moderate effect

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Authors: Nihad Alem

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Nowadays, distance learning (DL) is widely perceived as a reformed type of education that takes advantage of technology to give more appealing opportunities especially for learners whose life conditions impede their attendance to regular classrooms however, creating interactional environment for students to expand their learning community and alleviate the feeling of loneliness and isolation should receive more attention when designing a distance learning course. This research aims to explore whether the audio/video peer learning can offer pedagogical add-ons to the Algerian distance learners and what are the pros and cons of its application as an educational experience in a synchronous environment mediated by Skype. Data were collected using video recordings of six sessions, reflective logs, and in-depth semi-structured interviews and will be analyzed by qualitatively identifying and measuring the three constitutional elements of the educational experience of peer learning namely the social presence, the cognitive presence, and the facilitation presence using a modified community of inquiry coding template. The findings from this study will provide recommendations for effective peer learning educational experience using the facilitation presence concept.

Keywords: audio/visual peer learning, community of inquiry, distance learning, facilitation presence

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Authors: Byron Baron

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Typical of the Mediterranean region, the Maltese islands exhibit calcareous soils containing low organic carbon content and high salinity, in addition to being relatively shallow. This has lead to the common practice of applying copious amounts of artificial fertilisers as well as other chemical inputs, together with the use of ground water having high salinity. Such intensive agricultural activities, over a prolonged time period, on such land has lead further to the loss of any soil fertility, together with direct negative impacts on the quality of fresh water reserves and the local ecosystem. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the natural resources on the island would be sufficient to apply ecological intensification i.e. the use of natural processes to replace anthropological inputs without any significant loss in food production. This was implementing through a sustainable agricultural system based on permaculture practices. Ecological intensification following permaculture principles was implemented for two years in order to capture the seasonal changes in duplicate. The areas dedicated to wild plants were only trimmed back to avoid excessive seeding but never mowing. A number of local staple crops were grown throughout this period, also in duplicate. Concomitantly, a number of practices were implemented following permaculture principles such as reducing land tilling, applying only natural fertiliser, mulching, monitoring of soil parameters using sensors, no use of herbicides or pesticides, and precision irrigation linked to a desalination system. Numerous environmental parameters were measured at regular intervals so as to quantify any improvements in ecological conditions. Crop output was also measured as kilos of produce per area. The results clearly show that over the two year period, the variety of wild plant species increased, the number of visiting pollinators increased, there were no pest infestations (although an increase in the number of pests was observed), and a slight improvement in overall soil health was also observed. This was obviously limited by the short duration of the testing implementation. Dedicating slightly less than 15% of total land area to wild plants in the form of borders around plots of crops assisted pollination and provided a foraging area for gleaning bats (measured as an increased number of feeding buzzes) whilst not giving rise to any pest infestations and no apparent yield losses or ill effects to the crops. Observed increases in crop yields were not significant. The study concluded that with the right support for the initial establishment of a healthy ecosystem and controlled intervention, the available natural resources on the island can substantially improve the condition of the local agricultural land area, resulting is a more prolonged economical output with greater ecological sustainability. That being said, more comprehensive and long-term monitoring is required in order to fully validate these results and design a sustainable agriculture system that truly achieves the best outcome for the Maltese context.

Keywords: ecological intensification, soil health, sustainable agriculture, permaculture

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Authors: Magdalena Madany-Saá

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This paper compares the language management of two language policies in plurinational Ecuador: (1) mandatory English language teaching that uses Western standards of quality, and (2) indigenous educación intercultural bilingüe, which promotes ancestral knowledge and the indigenous languages of Ecuador. The data are from a comparative institutional ethnography conducted between 2018 and 2022 in English and Kichwa teacher preparation programs in an Ecuadorian teachers’ college. Specifically, the paper explores frameworks of knowledge promoted by different educational actors in both teacher education programs and the ways in which the Ecuadorian transformation towards a knowledge-based economy is intertwined with the country’s linguistic policies. Focusing on the specific role of language advocates and their discursive role in knowledge production, the paper elaborates on the notion of agency in Language Policy and Planning (LPP), referred to as epistemic agency. Specifically, the epistemic agency is conceptualized through the analysis of English language epistemic advocates who participate in empowering English language policies and endorse knowledge production in that language. By proposing an epistemic agency, this paper argues that in the context of knowledge-based societies, advocates are key in transferring the policies from the political to the epistemic realm – where decisions about what counts as legitimate knowledge are made. The study uses the decolonial option as its analytical framework for critiquing the hegemonic perpetuation of modernity and its knowledge-based models in Latin America derived from the colonial matrix of power. Through this theoretical approach, it is argued that if indigenous stakeholders are only viewed as political actors and not as knowledge producers, the hegemony of Global English will reinforce a knowledge-based society constructed upon Global North modernity. In the absence of strong epistemic advocates for indigenous language policies, powerful Global English advocates occupy such vacancies at the language management level, thus dominating the ecology of knowledge in a plurinational and plurilingual Ecuador.

Keywords: educación intercultural bilingüe, English language teaching, epistemic agency, language advocates, plurinationality

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Authors: Bogdan Walek, Vladimir Bradac, Radim Farana

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Distance learning systems offer useful methods of learning and usually contain final course test or another form of test. The paper proposes web application for evaluating tests using expert system in distance learning systems. Proposed web application is appropriate for didactic tests or tests with results for subsequent studying follow-up courses. Web application works with test questions and uses expert system and LFLC tool for test evaluation. After test evaluation the results are visualized and shown to student.

Keywords: distance learning, test, uncertainty, fuzzy, expert system, student

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Authors: Mulu G. Gencha, Gebremedhin Simon, Menna Olango

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This study was conducted at Hawassa University (HwU) in the Southern Nation Nationalities Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) of Ethiopia. The prime concern of this study was to examine the writing performances of experimental and control group students, perception of experimental group students, and subject instructors. The course was blended learning (BL). Blended learning is a hybrid of classroom and on-line learning. Participants were eighty students from the School of Computer Science. Forty students attended the BL delivery involved using Face-to-Face (FTF) and campus-based online instruction. All instructors, fifty, of School of Language and Communication Studies along with 10 FGD members participated in the study. The experimental group went to the computer lab two times a week for four months, March-June, 2012, using the local area network (LAN), and software (MOODLE) writing program. On the other hand, the control group, forty students, took the FTF writing course five times a week for four months in similar academic calendar. The three instruments, the attitude questionnaire, tests and FGD were designed to identify views of students, instructors, and FGD participants on BL. At the end of the study, students’ final course scores were evaluated. Data were analyzed using independent samples t-tests. A statistically, significant difference was found between the FTF and BL (p<0.05). The analysis showed that the BL group was more successful than the conventional group. Besides, both instructors and students had positive attitude towards BL. The final section of the thesis showed the potential benefits and challenges, considering the pedagogical implications for the BL, and recommended possible avenues for further works.

Keywords: blended learning, computer attitudes, computer usefulness, computer liking, computer confidence, computer phobia

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Authors: R. Herscu-Kluska

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The rise of the flipped or inverted classroom meet the conceptual needs of our time. The evidence of increased student satisfaction and course grades improvement promoted the flipped learning approach. Due to the successful outcomes of the inverted classroom, the flipped learning became a pedagogy and educational rising strategy among all education sciences. The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of flipped classroom on higher order learning in chemistry courses since it has been suggested that in higher education courses, class time should focus on knowledge application. The results of this study indicate improving meta-cognitive thinking and learning skills. The students showed better ability to cope with higher order learning assignments during the actual class time, using inverted classroom strategy. These results suggest that flipped learning can be used as an effective pedagogy and educational strategy for developing higher order thinking skills, proved to contribute to building lifelong learning.

Keywords: chemistry education, flipped classroom, flipped learning, inverted classroom, science education

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Authors: Lidia N. Hernández-Piña, Carlos R. Jaimez-González

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Interoperability in distributed systems is an important feature that refers to the communication of two applications written in different programming languages. This paper presents a serializer and a de-serializer of PHP objects to and from XML, which is an independent library written in the PHP programming language. The XML generated by this serializer is independent of the programming language, and can be used by other existing Web Objects in XML (WOX) serializers and de-serializers, which allow interoperability with other object-oriented programming languages.

Keywords: interoperability, PHP object serialization, PHP to XML, web objects in XML, WOX

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Authors: Jinan Fiaidhi, Sabah Mohammed

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Cross-domain learning in the medical field is a research challenge as many conditions, like in oncology imaging, use different imaging modalities. Moreover, in most of the medical learning applications, the sample training size is relatively small. Although few-shot learning (FSL) through the use of a Siamese neural network was able to be trained on a small sample with remarkable accuracy, FSL fails to be effective for use in multiple domains as their convolution weights are set for task-specific applications. In this paper, we are addressing this problem by enabling FSL to possess the ability to shift across domains by designing a two-layer FSL network that can learn individually from each domain and produce a shared features map with extra modulation to be used at the second layer that can recognize important targets from mix domains. Our initial experimentations based on mixed medical datasets like the Medical-MNIST reveal promising results. We aim to continue this research to perform full-scale analytics for testing our cross-domain FSL learning.

Keywords: Siamese neural network, few-shot learning, meta-learning, metric-based learning, thick data transformation and analytics

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Authors: Anthony Vandarakis

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Today’s International Service Learning practices require an update: modern technologies, fresh educational frameworks, and a new operating system to accountably prosper. This paper describes a model of International Service Learning (ISL), which combines current technological hardware, electronic platforms, and asynchronous communications that are grounded in inclusive pedagogy. This model builds on the work around collaborative field trip learning, extending the reach to international partnerships across continents. Mobile technology, 21^st century skills and summit-basecamp modeling intersect to support novel forms of learning that tread lightly on fragile natural ecosystems, affirm local reciprocal partnership in projects, and protect traveling participants from common yet avoidable cultural pitfalls.

Keywords: International Service Learning, ISL, field experiences, mobile technology, out there in here, summit basecamp pedagogy

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Authors: Rukminingsih Rukmi

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This paper addresses the issue of L2 teaching speaking to ESL students by fostering their active learning through project-based learning. Project-based learning was employed in classrooms where teachers support students by giving sufficient guidance and feedback. The students drive the inquiry, engage in research and discovery, and collaborate effectively with teammates to deliver the final work product. The teacher provides the initial direction and acts as a facilitator along the way. This learning approach is considered helpful for fostering students’ active learning. that the steps in implementing of project-based learning that fosters students’ critical thinking in TEFL class are in the following: (1) Discussing the materials about Speaking Class, (2) Working with the group to construct scenario of ways on speaking practice, (3) Practicing the scenario, (4) Recording the speaking practice into video, and (5) Evaluating the video product. This research is aimed to develop a strategy of teaching speaking by implementing project-based learning to improve speaking skill in the second Semester of English Department of STKIP PGRI Jombang. To achieve the purpose, the researcher conducted action research. The data of the study were gathered through the following instruments: test, observation checklists, and questionnaires. The result was indicated by the increase of students’ average speaking scores from 65 in the preliminary study, 73 in the first cycle, and 82 in the second cycle. Besides, the results of the study showed that project-based learning considered to be appropriate strategy to give students the same amount of chance in practicing their speaking skill and to pay attention in creating a learning situation.

Keywords: active learning, project-based learning, speaking ability, L2 teaching speaking

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Authors: M. A. Mabasa, O. Ramokolo, M. Z. Mnikathi, D. Mathabatha, T. Manyapelo

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The study examines the importance of translating South African folklore from Oral into Written Literature in a Multilingual Education. Therefore, the study postulates that translation can be regarded as a valuable tool when oral and written literature is transmitted from one generation to another. The study entails that translation does not take place in a haphazard fashion; for that reason, skills such as translation principles are required to translate folklore significantly and effectively. The purpose of the study is to indicate the significance of using translation relating to folklore in teaching and learning. The study also observed that Modernism in literature should be shared amongst varieties of cultures because folklore is interactive in narrating stories, folktales and myths to sharpen the reader’s knowledge and intellect because they are informative and educative in nature. As a technological tool, the study points out that translation is of paramount importance in the sense that the meanings of different data can be made available in all South African official languages using oral and written forms of folklore. The study opines that tradition and customary beliefs and practices in the institution of higher learning. The study envisages the way in which literature of folklore can be juxtaposed to ensure that translated folklore is of quality assured standards. The study alludes that well-translated folklore can serve as oral and written literature, which may contribute to the child’s learning and acquisition of knowledge and insights during cognitive development toward maturity. Methodologically, the study selects a qualitative research approach and selects content analysis as an instrument for data gathering, which will be analyzed qualitatively in consideration of the significance of translating folklore as written and spoken literature in a documented way. The study reveals that the translation of folktales promotes functional multilingualism in high-function formal contexts like a university. The study emphasizes that translated and preserved literary folklore may serve as a language repository from one generation to another because of the archival and storage of information in the form of a term bank.

Keywords: translation, editing, teaching, learning, folklores

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Authors: Assel Jaxylykova, Alexnder Pak

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This study utilized a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) for unsupervised learning on the CONLL-2003 dataset for Named Entity Recognition (NER). The process involved encoding words into 300-dimensional vectors using FastText. These vectors were input into a SOM grid, where training adjusted node weights to minimize distances. The SOM provided a topological representation for identifying and clustering named entities, demonstrating its efficacy without labeled examples. Results showed an F1-measure of 0.86, highlighting SOM's viability. Although some methods achieve higher F1 measures, SOM eliminates the need for labeled data, offering a scalable and efficient alternative. The SOM's ability to uncover hidden patterns provides insights that could enhance existing supervised methods. Further investigation into potential limitations and optimization strategies is suggested to maximize benefits.

Keywords: named entity recognition, natural language processing, self-organizing map, CONLL-2003, semantics

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Authors: Jamshid Qodirov, Sirojiddin Komolov, Ravilov Mirahmad, Olimjon Mirzayev

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Nowadays, natural language processing tools play a crucial role in our daily lives, including various techniques with text processing. There are very advanced models in modern languages, such as English, Russian etc. But, in some languages, such as Uzbek, the NLP models have been developed recently. Thus, there are only a few NLP models in Uzbek language. Moreover, there is no such work that could show which Uzbek NLP model behaves in different situations and when to use them. This work tries to close this gap and compares the Uzbek NLP models existing as of the time this article was written. The authors try to compare the NLP models in two different scenarios: sentiment analysis and sentence similarity, which are the implementations of the two most common problems in the industry: classification and similarity. Another outcome from this work is two datasets for classification and sentence similarity in Uzbek language that we generated ourselves and can be useful in both industry and academia as well.

Keywords: NLP, benchmak, bert, vectorization

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Authors: Naomi Mutea, Jossete Jones

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The project aimed at exploring the views and perceptions of nurse leaders and educators regarding use of International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) in an informal approach which involved face to face discussions, after which a decision would be made on whether to proceed and propose introduction of ICNP project in Kenya as a pilot project which would mean all nurses would use a standard approach to reporting and documenting nursing care. In addition the project was to determine the best approaches/methods that can be used to introduce ICNP in the Kenyan nursing education and practice environment using the findings of the pilot project. Further four cardex reports were reviewed to establish if nurses on the bedside used a standardized language in documenting and reporting care processes. The cardex reports showed that nurses do not use ICNP or any other standardized language. The results of the discussions revealed that this would be a challenge due to several challenges experienced in conducting nursing research in resource-limited environments. The following questions were asked during the informal discussions with the educators/leaders: •What is currently being taught in terms of standardized nursing language? •Are you familiar with ICNP? •Do you view it advantageous to have a standardized language? •What is the greatest need at the moment in terms of curriculum development for BSN regarding use of standardized nursing language? •If you had a wish to change something in your curriculum, what would that be?

Keywords: nursing, standardized language, ICNP, resource-limited care environments

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Authors: Yenie Norambuena

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Analogical reasoning is a cognitive process that consists of structured comparisons of mental representations and scheme construction. Because of its heuristic function, it is ubiquitous in cognition and could play an important role in language development. The use of analogies is expressed early in children and this behavior is also reflected in language, suggesting a possible way to understand the complex links between thought and language. The current research examines factors of verbal and non-verbal reasoning that should be taken into consideration in the study of language development for their relations and predictive value. The study was conducted with 48 Chilean preschoolers (Spanish speakers) from 4 to 6-year-old. We assessed children’s verbal analogical reasoning, non-verbal analogical reasoning and linguistics skills (Listening Comprehension, Phonemic awareness, Alphabetic principle, Syllabification, Lexical repetition and Lexical decision). The results evidenced significant correlations between analogical reasoning factors and linguistic skills and they can predict linguistic performance mainly on oral comprehension, lexical decision and phonological skills. These findings suggest a fundamental interrelationship between analogical reasoning and linguistic performance on children’s and points to the need to consider this cognitive process in comprehensive theories of children's language development.

Keywords: verbal analogical reasoning, non-verbal analogical reasoning, linguistic skills, language development

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Authors: H. S. Saini, K. Vijayalakshmi, Rishi Sayal

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Network-based education has been growing rapidly in size and quality. Knowledge clustering becomes more important in personalized information retrieval for web-learning. A personalized-Learning service after the learners’ knowledge has been classified with clustering. Through automatic analysis of learners’ behaviors, their partition with similar data level and interests may be discovered so as to produce learners with contents that best match educational needs for collaborative learning. We present a specific mining tool and a recommender engine that we have integrated in the online learning in order to help the teacher to carry out the whole e-learning process. We propose to use sequential pattern mining algorithms to discover the most used path by the students and from this information can recommend links to the new students automatically meanwhile they browse in the course. We have Developed a specific author tool in order to help the teacher to apply all the data mining process. We tend to report on many experiments with real knowledge so as to indicate the quality of using both clustering and sequential pattern mining algorithms together for discovering personalized e-learning systems.

Keywords: e-learning, cluster, personalization, sequence, pattern

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Authors: Lai Wenfang

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Tthis study will describe how to use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to build the user-oriented platform for integrated archival service. The platform will be launched in 2020 by the National Archives Administration (NAA) in Taiwan. With the progression of information communication technology (ICT) the NAA has built many systems to provide archival service. In order to cope with new challenges, such as new ICT, artificial intelligence or blockchain etc. the NAA will try to use the natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) skill to build a training model and propose suggestions based on the data sent to the platform. NAA expects the platform not only can automatically inform the sending agencies’ staffs which records catalogues are against the transfer or destroy rules, but also can use the model to find the details hidden in the catalogues and suggest NAA’s staff whether the records should be or not to be, to shorten the auditing time. The platform keeps all the users’ browse trails; so that the platform can predict what kinds of archives user could be interested and recommend the search terms by visualization, moreover, inform them the new coming archives. In addition, according to the Archives Act, the NAA’s staff must spend a lot of time to mark or remove the personal data, classified data, etc. before archives provided. To upgrade the archives access service process, the platform will use some text recognition pattern to black out automatically, the staff only need to adjust the error and upload the correct one, when the platform has learned the accuracy will be getting higher. In short, the purpose of the platform is to deduct the government digital transformation and implement the vision of a service-oriented smart government.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, visualization

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Authors: Daban Mohammed Haji

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This paper explores the application of constructive alignment in digital education at the University of Sulaimani, focusing specifically on the Language and Culture Center, Translation Department, and English Department. Constructive alignment, an outcome-based pedagogical framework developed by John Biggs, ensures that learning activities and assessments are directly aligned with the intended learning outcomes (ILOs). The study's findings reveal a significant gap in awareness and understanding of this pedagogical concept among lecturers. Many instructors are unfamiliar with constructive alignment, and those who have some knowledge of it face considerable challenges. These challenges include aligning learning activities and assessments with the ILOs and fostering higher-order cognitive skills as outlined in the SOLO taxonomy and revised Bloom’s taxonomy. To address this issue, the existing pedagogy center at the University of Sulaimani could play a pivotal role. This center has the potential to foster faculty development and promote the adoption of constructive alignment in online teaching. By leveraging the center's expertise and resources, a tailored program can be designed to enhance faculty understanding and application of this pedagogical framework.

Keywords: constructive alignment, student-centerdness, pedagogy, bologna process

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Authors: Diane Vassallo., Leonard Busuttil

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Recent educational developments have seen increasing attention attributed to Computational Thinking (CT) and its integration into primary and secondary school curricula. CT is more than simply being able to use technology but encompasses fundamental Computer Science concepts which are deemed to be very important in developing the correct mindset for our future digital citizens. The case study presented in this article explores the journey of a Maltese secondary school teacher in his efforts to plan, develop and integrate CT within the context of a local classroom. The teacher participant was recruited from the Malta EU Code week summer school, a pilot initiative that stemmed from the EU Code week Team’s Train the Trainer program. The qualitative methodology involved interviews with the participant teacher as well as an analysis of the artefacts created by the students during the lessons. The results shed light on the numerous challenges and obstacles that the teacher encountered in his integration of CT, as well as portray some brilliant examples of good practices which can substantially inform further research and practice around the integration of CT in classroom practice.

Keywords: computational thinking, digital citizens, digital literacy, technology integration

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Authors: Adriana Salgado, Sandra Castaneda, Ivan Perez

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Learning to read and write is a complex process involving several cognitive skills, contextual, and cultural environments. The basis of this development is linguistic skills, such as the ability to name and understand vocabulary, retell a story, phonological awareness, letter knowledge, among others. In children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), one of the main concerns is related to language disorders. Nevertheless, most of the children with ASD are able to decode written information but have difficulties in reading comprehension. The research of these processes in the Spanish-speaking population is limited. However, the increasing prevalence of this diagnosis (1 in 115 children) in Mexico has implications at different levels. Educational research is an important area of interest in ASD children, such as emergent literacy. Reading and writing expand the possibilities of academic, cultural, and social information access. Taking this information into account, the objective of this research was to identify the relationship between language skills, alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and early reading and writing in ASD Spanish-speaking children. The method used for this research was based on tasks that were selected, adapted and in some cases designed to measure initial reading and writing, as well as language skills (naming, receptive vocabulary, and narrative skills), phonological awareness (similar phonological word pairs, beginning sound awareness and spelling) and letter knowledge, in a sample of 45 children (38 boys and 7 girls) with prior diagnosis of ASD. Descriptive analyses, as well as bivariate correlations, cluster analysis, and canonical correspondence, were obtained for the data results. Results showed that variability was large; however, it was possible to characterize the sample in low, medium, and high score groups regarding children performance. The low score group (46.7% of the sample), had a null or deficient performance in language skills and phonological awareness, some could identify up to five letters of the alphabet, showed no early reading skills but they could scribble. The middle score group was characterized by a highly variable performance in different tasks, with better language skills in receptive and naming vocabulary, some narrative, letter knowledge, and phonological awareness (beginning sound awareness) skills. The high score group, (24.4% of the sample) had the best performance in language skills in relation to the sample data, as well as in the rest of the measured skills. Finally, scores were canonically correlated between naming, receptive vocabulary, narrative, phonological awareness, letter knowledge and initial learning of reading and writing skills for the high score group and letter knowledge, naming and receptive vocabulary for the lower score group, which is consistent with previous research in typical and ASD children. In conclusion, the obtained data is consistent with previous studies. Despite large variability, it was possible to identify performance profiles and relations based on linguistic, phonological awareness, and letter knowledge skills. These skills were predictor variables of the initial development of reading and writing. The above has implications for a future program and strategies development that may benefit the acquisition of reading and writing in ASD children.

Keywords: autism, autism spectrum disorders, early literacy, emergent literacy

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Authors: Ellen A. Kalinga

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Moodle is an open source learning management system that enables creation of a powerful and flexible learning environment. Many organizations, especially learning institutions have customized Moodle open source LMS for their own use. In general open source LMSs are of great interest due to many advantages they offer in terms of cost, usage and freedom to customize to fit a particular context. Tanzania Secondary School e-Learning (TanSSe-L) system is the learning management system for Tanzania secondary schools. TanSSe-L system was developed using a number of methods, one of them being customization of Moodle Open Source LMS. This paper presents few areas on the way Moodle OS LMS was customized to produce a functional TanSSe-L system fitted to the requirements and specifications of Tanzania secondary schools’ context.

Keywords: LMS, Moodle, e-learning, Tanzania, secondary school

Procedia PDF Downloads 380

Authors: Sara Moridpour

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To meet emerging industry needs, engineering students must learn different software packages and enhance their computational skills. Traditionally, face-to-face is selected as the preferred approach to teaching software packages. Face-to-face tutorials and workshops provide an interactive environment for learning software packages where the students can communicate with the teacher and interact with other students, evaluate their skills, and receive feedback. However, COVID-19 significantly limited face-to-face learning and teaching activities at universities. Worldwide lockdowns and the shift to online and remote learning and teaching provided the opportunity to introduce different strategies to enhance the interaction among students and teachers in online and virtual environments and improve the learning and teaching of software packages in online and blended teaching methods. This paper introduces a blended strategy to teach engineering software packages to undergraduate students. This article evaluates the effectiveness of the proposed blended learning and teaching strategy in students’ learning by comparing the impact of face-to-face, online and the proposed blended environments on students’ software skills. The paper evaluates the students’ software skills and their software learning through an authentic assignment. According to the results, the proposed blended teaching strategy successfully improves the software learning experience among undergraduate engineering students.

Keywords: teaching software packages, undergraduate students, blended learning and teaching, authentic assessment

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Christian Neunzig, Simon Fahle, Jürgen Schulz, Matthias Möller, Bernd Kuhlenkötter

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The widespread use of machine learning applications in production is significantly accelerated by improved computing power and increasing data availability. Predictive quality enables the assurance of product quality by using machine learning models as a basis for decisions on test results. The use of real Bosch production data based on geometric gauge blocks from machining, mating data from assembly and hydraulic measurement data from final testing of directional valves is a promising approach to classifying the quality characteristics of workpieces.

Keywords: machine learning, classification, predictive quality, hydraulics, supervised learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 198

Authors: Pelumi Olowofoyeku

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English as a language has great reach and influence; it is taught all over the world. For instance, in Nigeria, English language is been taught and learned as a second language; therefore second learners of English in Nigeria have certain problems they contend with. Because of the dissimilarities in word formation patterns of English and Yoruba languages, Yoruba learners of English mostly found in the south west of Nigeria, and some parts of Kwara, Kogi, and Edo states of Nigeria have problems with word formation patterns in English. The objectives of this paper therefore, are: to identify the levels of word formation dissimilarities in English and Yoruba languages and to examine the effects of these dissimilarities on the Yoruba learners of English. The data for this paper were graded words purposely selected and presented to selected students of Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Oto-Ijanikin, Lagos, who are Yoruba learners of English. These respondents were randomly selected to form words which are purposively selected to test the effects of word formation dissimilarities between Yoruba (the respondent’s first language) and English language on the respondents. The dissimilarities are examined using contrastive analysis tools. This paper reveals that there are differences in the word formation patterns of Yoruba and English languages. The writer believes that there is need for language teachers to undertake comparative studies of the two languages involved for methodological reasons. The author then suggests that teachers should identify the problem areas and systematically teach their students. The paper concludes that although English and Yoruba word formation patterns differ very significantly in many respects, there exist language universals in all languages which language educators should take advantage of in teaching.

Keywords: word formation patterns, graded words, ESL, Yoruba learners

Procedia PDF Downloads 489

Authors: Elizabeth Mahenge

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Unemployment is a problem that face many graduates all over the world. Every year universities in many parts of the world produce graduates who are looking for an employment. Swahili, a Bantu language originated in East African coast, can be used as an avenue for youth’s employment in South Africa. This paper helps youth to know about job opportunities available through teaching Swahili language. The objective of this paper is capacity building to youths to be teachers of Swahili and be ready to compete in the marketplace. The methodology was through two weeks online training on how to teach Swahili as a foreign language. The communicative approach and task-based approach were used.  Participants to this training were collected through a WhatsApp group advertisement about “short training for Swahili teachers for foreigners”. A total number of 30 participants registered but only 11 attended the training. Training was online via zoom. The contribution of this paper is that by being fluent in Swahili one would benefit with teaching job opportunities anywhere in the world. Hence the problem of unemployment among the youths would be reduced as they can employ themselves or being employed in academic institutions anywhere in the world. The paper calls for youths in South Africa to opt for Swahili language courses to be trained and become experts in the teaching Swahili as a foreign language.

Keywords: foreign language, linguistic market, Swahili, employment

Procedia PDF Downloads 64

Authors: Clifford Irikefe Gbeyonron

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The Nigerian educational system, which has English language as a major medium of instruction, has been designed in such a way that the cognitive, psychomotor and affective endowments of the Nigerian learner could be explored. However, the human resources that would impart the desired knowledge, skills and values in the learners seem to be in short supply. This paucity is more manifest in the area of teachers of English. As a result, this research was conducted on the demand and supply of teachers of English at the junior secondary schools in Gashua, Yobe State. The results indicate that there was dearth of teachers of English the domain under review. This thus presents a challenge that should propel English language teacher education industries to produce more teachers of English. As a result, this paper recommends that the teacher production process should make use of qualified and enthusiastic teacher trainers that would be able to inculcate in-depth linguistic and communicative competence of English language and English language teaching skills in the potential teachers of English. In addition, English language education service providers should attract and retain the trained teachers of English in the business of English language teaching in such a way that all the states of Nigeria could experience educational development.

Keywords: demand, supply, teachers of English, Yobe State

Procedia PDF Downloads 364