Search results for: computer-aided language teaching

Authors: Behnaz Zolfaghari

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In civilized societies, linguists seek to find suitable equivalents for scientific terms in the common language of their society. Many researches have conducted surveys about language of science on one hand and media discourse on the other, but the goal of this research is the comparative analysis of science discourse in Persian academic media and public discourse in the general Persian media by applying experimental meta-function as one of the four theoretical tools introduced by Holiday’s Systemic Functional Grammar .The said analysis aims to explore the processes that can convert the language in which scientific facts are published to a language well suited to the interested layman. The results of comparison show that these two discourses use differently six processes of experimental meta-function. Comparing the redundancy of different processes, the researcher tried to re-identify these differences in these two discourses and present a model for the procedures of converting science discourse to popularized discourse. This model can be useful for those journalists and textbook authors who want to restate scientific technical texts in a simple style for inexpert addresser including general people and students.

Keywords: systemic functional grammar, discourse analysis, science language, popularization, media discourse

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Authors: M. Aherrahrou

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Moroccan education is currently facing many difficulties and problems due to traditional methods of teaching. Neuro -Linguistic Programming (NLP) appears to hold much potential for education at all levels. In this paper, the major aim is to explore the effect of certain Neuro -Linguistic Programming techniques in one educational institution in Morocco. Quantitative and Qualitative methods are used. The findings prove the effectiveness of this new approach regarding Moroccan education, and it is a promising tool to improve the quality of learning.

Keywords: learning and teaching environment, Neuro- Linguistic Programming, education, quality of learning

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Authors: Ronit German, Alexandra Beytenbrat

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Although English seems to be prevalent in every sphere of Israeli daily life, not many Israeli students have a sufficient level of writing and speaking in English which is necessary for academic studies. The inadequate level of English among Israeli students, almost the sole focus on teaching reading comprehension, and the need to adapt to the trends of the professional worldwide demands triggered a reform that requires to implement Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) courses in the Israeli academic institutions. However, it will be argued that this reform is challenging to implement. The fact that modern Hebrew is a revived language, and that English is L3 for more than 30% of the population, the diverse social and cultural students’ background, and psychological factors stand in the way of the new reform.

Keywords: CEFR, cultural diversity, EMI courses, English in Israel, reform

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Authors: Dianah Kitiabi

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This study examines the experiences of graduate international students in Study Abroad (SA) in order to understand the evolution of their second language (L2) skills during the period of their sojourn abroad. The study documents students’ perspectives through analysis of interview data situated within the context of their overall SA experience. Based on a phenomenological approach, the study focuses on a sample of nine graduate students with at least one year of SA experience. Gass & Mackey’s (2007) interaction approach and Vygotsky’s (1962) sociocultural theory help frame the study within the discourse of second language acquisition (SLA) in SA, such as to highlight the effects of SA on L2 skills of advanced-level learners. The findings of the study are first presented as individual case vignettes where students’ interpretations of their personal experiences are described in entirety, followed by an analysis across the cases that highlight emergent themes. The results of this study show that the linguistic outcomes of international students studying abroad are highly individualized. Although students reported to have improved some of their L2 skills, they also reported a lack of improvement in other L2 skills, most of which differed by case. What emerges is that besides contextual factors, students’ pre-program exposure to L2, interactions with NSs, frequency of L2 use in context, and personal beliefs contribute to their linguistic gains in SA.

Keywords: context, interaction, second language acquisition, study abroad

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Authors: Nadeem Hassan, Farooq Ahmad

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The quality of education has a direct impact on individual, family, society, economy in general and the mankind as a whole. Because of that thousands of research papers and articles are written on the quality of education, billions of dollars are spent and continuously being spent on research and enhancing the quality of education. Academic programs accredited agencies define the various criterion of quality of education; academic institutions obtain accreditation from these agencies to ensure degree programs offered at their institution are of international standards. This R&D aims to build a web based analytical tool (OptiBaha) that finds the gaps in AlBaha University education system by taking input from stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff and management. The input/online-data collected by this tool will be analyzed on core areas of education as proposed by accredited agencies, CAC of ABET and NCAAA of KSA, including student background, language, culture, motivation, curriculum, teaching methodology, assessment and evaluation, performance and progress, facilities, availability of teaching materials, faculty qualification, monitoring, policies and procedures, and more. Based on different analytical reports, gaps will be highlighted, and remedial actions will be proposed. If the tool is implemented and made available through a continuous process the quality of education at AlBaha University can be enhanced, it will also help in fulfilling criterion of accreditation agencies. The tool will be generic in nature and ultimately can be used by any academic institution.

Keywords: academic quality, accreditation agencies, higher education, policies and procedures

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Authors: Angela Maria Sarmiento

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Since the end of the 19th century, the Bora people struggled to survive two stages of colonial domination, which resulted in situations of forced contact with the Western world. Their inclusion in global designs altered the configuration of their local spaces and social practices; thus the Bora language was affected and prone to transformation. This descriptive, interpretive study, within the indigenous and minoritized groups’ research field, aimed at analysing the linguistic attitudes as well as the contextual situation of the Bora language in Providencia, an ancestral territory and a speech community contained in the midst of the Colombian Amazon rainforest. Through the inquiry of their sociolinguistic practices, this study also considered the effects of the course of events derived from the rubber exploitation in the late 19th century, and the arrival of the Capuchin’s mission in the early 20th century. The methodology used in this study had an ethnographic approach, which allowed the researcher to study the social phenomena from the perspective of the participants. Fieldwork, diary, field notes, and semi-structured interviews were conducted and then triangulated with participant observations. The findings of this study suggest that there is a transition from current individual bilingualism towards Spanish monolingualism; this is enhanced by the absence of a functional distribution of the three varieties (Bora, Huitoto, and Spanish). Also, the positive attitudes towards the Spanish language are based on its functionality while positive attitudes towards the Bora language mostly refer to pride and identity. Negative attitudes are only directed towards the Bora language. In the search for the roots of these negative attitudes, appeared the traumatic experiences of the rubber exploitation and the indigenous experiences at the capuchin’s boarding school. Finally, the situation of the Bora language can be configured as a social fact strongly connected to previous years of colonial dominations and to the current and continuous incursion of new global-colonial designs.

Keywords: Bora language, language contact, linguistic attitudes, speech communities

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Authors: Gilbert Makanda

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The problem of the teaching of mathematics is studied using differential equations. A mathematical model for knowledge acquisition in mathematics is developed. In this study we adopt the mathematical model that is normally used for disease modelling in the teaching of mathematics. It is assumed that teaching is 'infecting' students with knowledge thereby spreading this knowledge to the students. It is also assumed that students who gain this knowledge spread it to other students making disease model appropriate to adopt for this problem. The results of this study show that increasing recruitment rates, learning contact with teachers and learning materials improves the number of knowledgeable students. High dropout rates and forgetting taught concepts also negatively affect the number of knowledgeable students. The developed model is then solved using Matlab ODE45 and \verb"lsqnonlin" to estimate parameters for the actual data.

Keywords: differential equations, knowledge acquisition, least squares, dynamical systems

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Authors: Pingping Lin, Xudong Luo

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Natural language often conveys emotions of speakers. Therefore, sentiment analysis on what people say is prevalent in the field of natural language process and has great application value in many practical problems. Thus, to help people understand its application value, in this paper, we survey various applications of sentiment analysis, including the ones in online business and offline business as well as other types of its applications. In particular, we give some application examples in intelligent customer service systems in China. Besides, we compare the applications of sentiment analysis on Twitter, Weibo, Taobao and Facebook, and discuss some challenges. Finally, we point out the challenges faced in the applications of sentiment analysis and the work that is worth being studied in the future.

Keywords: application, natural language processing, online comments, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Maria Belen C. Costa, Liza C. Costa

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Teachers have an important influence on students’ academic achievement. Teachers play a crucial role in educational attainment because they stand in the interface of the transmission of knowledge, values, and skills in the learning process through the instructional strategies they employ in the classroom. The level of achievement of students in school depends on the degree of effectiveness of instructional strategies used by the teacher. Thus, this study was conceptualized and conducted to examine the instructional strategies preferred and used by the Science and Mathematics teachers and the impact of those strategies in their teaching performance and students’ academic achievement in Science and Mathematics. The participants of the study comprised a total enumeration of 61 teachers who were chosen through total enumeration and 610 students who were selected using two-stage random sampling technique. The descriptive correlation design was used in this study with a self-made questionnaire as the main tool in the data gathering procedure. Relationship among variables was tested and analyzed using Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient and Wilcoxon Signed Rank statistics. The teacher participants under study mainly belonged to the age group of ‘young’ (35 years and below) and most were females having ‘very much experienced’ (16 years and above) in teaching. Teaching performance was found to be ‘very satisfactory’ while academic achievement in Science and Mathematics was found to be ‘satisfactory’. Demographic profile and teaching performance of teacher participants were found to be ‘not significant’ to their instructional strategy preferences. Results implied that age, sex, level of education and length of service of the teachers does not affect their preference on a particular instructional strategy. However, the teacher participants’ extent of use of the different instructional strategies was found to be ‘significant’ to their teaching performance. The instructional strategies being used by the teachers were found to have a direct effect on their teaching performance. Academic achievement of student participants was found to be ‘significant’ to the teacher participants’ instructional strategy preferences. The preference of the teachers on instructional strategies had a significant effect on the students’ academic performance. On the other hand, teacher participants’ extent of use of instructional strategies was showed to be ‘not significant’ to the academic achievement of students in Science and Mathematics. The instructional strategy being used by the teachers did not affect the level of performance of students in Science and Mathematics. The results of the study revealed that there was a significant difference between the teacher participants’ preference of instructional strategy and the student participants’ instructional strategy preference as well as between teacher participants’ extent of use and student participants’ perceived level of use of the different instructional strategies. Findings found a discrepancy between the teaching strategy preferences of students and strategies implemented by teachers.

Keywords: academic achievement, extent of use, instructional strategy, preferences

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Authors: Katerina Florou

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Two decades after coined the term "learner corpora" as collections of texts created by foreign or second language learners across various language contexts, and some years following suggestion to incorporate "focusing on form" within a Task-Based Learning framework, this study aims to explore how learner corpora, whether annotated with errors or not, can facilitate a focus on form in an educational setting. Argues that analyzing linguistic form serves the purpose of enabling students to delve into language and gain an understanding of different facets of the foreign language. This same objective is applicable when analyzing learner corpora marked with errors or in their raw state, but in this scenario, the emphasis lies on identifying incorrect forms. Teachers should aim to address errors or gaps in the students' second language knowledge while they engage in a task. Building on this recommendation, we compared the written output of two student groups: the first group (G1) employed the focusing on form phase by studying a specific aspect of the Italian language, namely the past participle, through examples from native speakers and grammar rules; the second group (G2) focused on form by scrutinizing their own errors and comparing them with analogous examples from a native speaker corpus. In order to test our hypothesis, we created four learner corpora. The initial two were generated during the task phase, with one representing each group of students, while the remaining two were produced as a follow-up activity at the end of the lesson. The results of the first comparison indicated that students' exposure to their own errors can enhance their grasp of a grammatical element. The study is in its second stage and more results are to be announced.

Keywords: Corpus interlanguage analysis, task based learning, Italian language as F1, learner corpora

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Authors: Cissy Li

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Mentorship is a commonly used strategy for career development that has obvious benefits for students in undergraduate pre-service teacher training programs. In contrast to teaching practicum, which generally involves pedagogical supervision and performance evaluation by teachers, mentorship is more focused on sharing experiences, supporting challenges, and nurturing skills in order to promote personal and professional growth. To empower pre-service teachers and prepare them for potential challenges in the context of local English language teaching (ELT), an alumni mentoring program was established in the framework of communities of practice (CoP), with the mentors being in-service graduates working in local schools and mentees being students on the teacher-training programme in a Hong Kong university. By triangulating audio transcripts of mentoring sessions delivered by three top mentors with data from questionnaire responses and mentor logs, this paper examines the mentoring styles of the three best mentors from the metadiscursive perspective. It was found that, in a community of practice, mentors who may seem to enjoy a relative more dominant position, in fact, had to strategically and pragmatically employ metadiscursive resources to manage relationships with the mentees and organize talks in the mentoring process. Other attributing factors for a successful mentoring session include mentor personality and prior mentorship experiences, nature of the activities in the session, and group dynamics. This paper concludes that it is the combination of all the factors that constitute a particular mentoring style. The findings have implications for mentoring programs in teacher preparation.

Keywords: mentoring, teacher education, mentoring style, metadiscourse

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Authors: Jiraporn Adchariyaprasit

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Thai language is difficult in all four language skills, especially reading. The first year students may have different abilities in reading, so a teacher is required to find out a student’s reading level so that the teacher can help and support them till they can develop and resolve each problem themselves. This research is aimed to study the prosody problem among Thai students and will be focused on first year Thai students in the second semester. A total of 58 students were involved in this study. Four obstacles were found: 1) Interpretation from what they read and write; 2) Incorrectness Pronunciation of Prosody; 3) Incorrectness in Rhythm of the Poem; Incorrectness of the Thai Poem Pronunciation.

Keywords: pronunciation, prosody, interpretation, Thai language

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Authors: Leila Goosen

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The research problem reported on in this paper relates to improving success in Computer Science and Information Technology subjects where students are learning applications, especially when teaching occurs in a distance education context. An investigation was launched in order to address students’ struggles with applications, and improve their assessment in such subjects. Some of the main arguments presented centre on formulating and situating significant concepts within an appropriate conceptual framework. The paper explores the experiences and perceptions of computing instructors, teaching assistants, students and higher education institutions on how they are empowered by using technologies such as myITLab. They also share how they are working with the available features to successfully teach applications to their students. The data collection methodology used is then described. The paper includes discussions on how myITLab empowers instructors, teaching assistants, students and higher education institutions. Conclusions are presented on the way in which this paper could make an original and significant contribution to the promotion and development of knowledge in fields related to successfully teaching applications for student learning, including in a distance education context. The paper thus provides a forum for practitioners to highlight and discuss insights and successes, as well as identify new technical and organisational challenges, lessons and concerns regarding practical activities related to myITLab as an implementation instance of distance education technologies.

Keywords: distance, education, myITLab, technologies

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Authors: Fatemeh Asadi Farsad, Sima Modirkhameneh

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The purpose of this study was to explore the pattern of Psychological Well-Being (PWB) of Iranian male and female EFL teachers during the pandemic. It was intended to see if such a drastic change in the context and mode of teaching affects teachers' PWB. Furthermore, the possible difference between the six elements of PWB of Iranian EFL male vs. female teachers during the pandemic was investigated. The other purpose was to find out the EFL teachers’ perceptions of any modifications, and factors leading to such modifications in their PWB during pandemic. For the purpose of this investigation, a total of 81 EFL teachers (59 female, 22 male) with an age range of 25 to 35 were conveniently sampled from different cities in Iran. Ryff’s PWB questionnaire was sent to participant teachers through online platforms to elicit data on their PWB. As for their perceptions on the possible modifications and the factors involved in PWB during pandemic, a set of semi-structured interviews were run among both sample groups. The findings revealed that male EFL teachers had the highest mean on personal growth, followed by purpose of life, and self-acceptance and the lowest mean on environmental mastery. With a slightly similar pattern, female EFL teachers had the highest mean on personal growth, followed by purpose in life, and positive relationship with others with the lowest mean on environmental mastery. However, no significant difference was observed between the male and female groups’ overall means on elements of PWB. Additionally, participants perceived that their anxiety level in online classes altered due to factors like (1) Computer literacy skills, (2) Lack of social communications and interactions with colleagues and students, (3) Online class management, (4) Overwhelming workloads, and (5) Time management. The study ends with further suggestions as regards effective online teaching preparation considering teachers PWB, especially at severe situations such as covid-19 pandemic. The findings offer to determine the reformations of educational policies concerning enhancing EFL teachers’ PWB through computer literacy courses and stress management courses. It is also suggested that to proactively support teachers’ mental health, it is necessary to provide them with advisors and psychologists if possible for free. Limitations: One limitation is the small number of participants (81), suggesting that future replications should include more participants for reliable findings. Another limitation is the gender imbalance, which future studies should address to yield better outcomes. Furthermore, Limited data gathering tools suggest using observations, diaries, and narratives for more insights in future studies. The study focused on one model of PWB, calling for further research on other models in the literature. Considering the wide effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, future studies should consider additional variables (e.g., teaching experience, age, income) to understand Iranian EFL teachers’ vulnerabilities and strengths better.

Keywords: online teaching, psychological well-being, female and male EFL teachers, pandemic

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Authors: Chanchai Supaartagorn

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Structured Query Language (SQL) is the standard de facto language to access and manipulate data in a relational database. Although SQL is a language that is simple and powerful, most novice users will have trouble with SQL syntax. Thus, we are presenting SQL generator tool which is capable of translating actions and displaying SQL commands and data sets simultaneously. The tool was developed based on Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. The MVC pattern is a widely used software design pattern that enforces the separation between the input, processing, and output of an application. Developers take full advantage of it to reduce the complexity in architectural design and to increase flexibility and reuse of code. In addition, we use White-Box testing for the code verification in the Model module.

Keywords: MVC, relational database, SQL, White-Box testing

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Authors: Yan Ma

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Parents in China now are of great enthusiasm to outsource extracurricular lessons and activities to ensure their children’s English learning. This study draws on one year of ethnographic observations and interviews with parents and children in 6 families in Shaoxing, a small city in East China, to explore how parents in different social classes differ in their ideology and investment practice towards their children’s English education. Through comparative analysis, the study reveals though all the families acknowledge the importance of English and there are great similarities among families in the same social class, differences are distinct among those in different social classes with regard to how they perceived the importance and what measures they take. The results also reflect China’s sociocultural and socioeconomic factors that underlined the heated wave of English learning as well as the social, cultural and economic conditions of different families that exert a decisive influence on their children’s learning experience.

Keywords: family background, extracurricular English learning, language ideologies, language management

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Authors: Peter I. I. Ikokwu

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Recent developments in the world, both in the health and education sectors, have further popularized the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). ICT is available for many purposes, including teaching and learning, and its use in education is believed to empower both teachers and students by making the educational process more effective and interactive. The study examined the perceptions of teachers on the factors affecting the use of ICT in the teaching and learning of chemistry and the mitigating factors. The study involved all the lecturers (herein referred to as teachers) in the Colleges of Education in South Eastern Nigeria. The survey design was employed. 35 teachers were selected by stratified random sampling from about 78 chemistry teachers in these Colleges. However, 34 questionnaires were recovered, comprising 13 males and 21 females. 3 research questions and 3 hypotheses guided the study. Results show that the teachers have a clear perception of the factors militating against the use of ICT in the teaching and learning of chemistry, with a pooled mean of 2.96. But there was no significant difference in the perceptions of male and female teachers. Also, they identified the mitigating factors highlighted with no significant difference between the perceptions of the males and females with pooled means of 3.23 and 3.11, respectively. In all, it is noteworthy that lack of funds, irregular and inadequate power supply, and inadequate time in the school timetable was among the militating factors. Recommendations were made for the consideration of the government, the teachers, and the Institutions.

Keywords: chemistry, teachers, perception, ICT, learning

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Authors: Shawn Michael Condon

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Current research on teaching expressivity mainly involves instrumentalists. This study focuses on choral singers’ preference of priming techniques based on four methods for teaching expressivity. 112 choral singers answered the survey about their preferred methods for priming expressivity (vocal modelling, using metaphor, tapping into felt emotions, and drawing on past experiences) in three conditions (active, passive, and instructor). Analysis revealed higher preference for drawing on past experience among more experienced singers. The most preferred technique in the passive and instructor roles was vocal modelling, with metaphors and tapping into felt emotions favoured in an active role. Priming techniques are often used in combination with other methods to enhance singing technique or expressivity and are dependent upon the situation, repertoire, and the preferences of the instructor and performer.

Keywords: emotion, expressivity, performance, singing, teaching

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Authors: Qi Wang

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Chinese has become a powerful worldwide language and millions of learners are studying it all over the words. Chinese is a tone language with unique meaningful characters, which makes foreign learners master it with more difficulties. On the other hand, as each foreign language, the learners of Chinese first will learn the basic Chinese Sound Structure (the initials and finals, tones, Neutral Tone and Tone Sandhi). It’s quite common that in the following studies, teachers made a lot of efforts on drilling and error correcting, in order to help students to pronounce correctly, but ignored the training of suprasegmental features (e.g. stress, intonation). This paper analysed the oral data based on our graduation students (two-year program) from 2006-2013, presents the intonation pattern of our graduates to speak Chinese as second language -high and plain with heavy accents, without lexical stress, appropriate stop endings and intonation, which led to the misunderstanding in different real contexts of communications and the international official Chinese test, e.g. HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test), HSKK (HSK Speaking Test). This paper also demonstrated how the Chinese to use the suprasegmental features strategically in different functions and moods (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory and rhetorical intonations) in order to train the learners to achieve better Communicative Performance.

Keywords: second language learning, suprasegmental, communication, HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test)

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Authors: Rohit Semwal, Shivam Arora, Saurav, Sangita Roy

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This work proposes a supervised framework with deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for vision-based sign language recognition of static gestures. Our approach addresses the acquisition and segmentation of correct inputs for the CNN-based classifier. Microsoft Kinect™ sensor, despite complex environmental conditions, can track hands efficiently. Skin Colour based segmentation is applied on cropped images of hands in different poses, used to depict different sign language gestures. The segmented hand images are used as an input for our classifier. The CNN classifier proposed in the paper is able to classify the input images with a high degree of accuracy. The system was trained and tested on 39 static sign language gestures, including 26 letters of the alphabet and 13 commonly used words. This paper includes a problem definition for building the proposed system, which acts as a sign language translator between deaf/mute and the rest of the society. It is then followed by a focus on reviewing existing knowledge in the area and work done by other researchers. It also describes the working principles behind different components of CNNs in brief. The architecture and system design specifications of the proposed system are discussed in the subsequent sections of the paper to give the reader a clear picture of the system in terms of the capability required. The design then gives the top-level details of how the proposed system meets the requirements.

Keywords: sign language, CNN, HCI, segmentation

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Authors: Rita Garcia

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Intelligent Programming Tutors, IPTs, are supplemental educational devices that assist in teaching software development. These systems provide customized learning allowing the user to select the presentation pace, pedagogical strategy, and to recall previous and additional teaching materials reinforcing learning objectives. In addition, IPTs automatically records individual’s progress, providing feedback to the instructor and student. These tutoring systems have an advantage over Tutoring Systems because Intelligent Programming Tutors are not limited to one teaching strategy and can adjust when it detects the user struggling with a concept. The Intelligent Programming Tutor is a category of Intelligent Tutoring Systems, ITS. ITS are available for many fields in education, supporting different learning objectives and integrate into other learning tools, improving the student's learning experience. This study provides a comparison of the IPTs currently adopted by the educational community and will focus on the different teaching methodologies and programming languages. The study also includes the ability to integrate the IPT into other educational technologies, such as massive open online courses, MOOCs. The intention of this evaluation is to determine one system that would best serve in a larger ongoing research project and provide findings for other institutions looking to adopt an Intelligent Programming Tutor.

Keywords: computer education tools, integrated software development assistance, intelligent programming tutors, tutoring systems

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Authors: Jiaqi XU, Qingru Sun

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Accent plays a crucial role in second language (L2) learners’ performance in the schooling context in the era of globalization, where English is adopted as a lingua franca (ELF). Previous studies found that Chinese mainland students prefer American English accents, whereas the young generations in Hong Kong prefer British accents. However, these studies neglect the non-native accents of English and fail to elaborate much about why the L2 learners differ in accent preferences between the two regions. Therefore, this research aims to bridge the research gap by 1) including both native and non-native varieties of English accents: American accent, British accent, Chinese Mandarin English accent, and Hong Kong English accent; and 2) uncovering and comparing the deeper reasons for the similar or/and different accent preferences between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong speakers. This research designed a questionnaire including objective and subjective questions to investigate the students’ accent inclinations and the attitudes and reasons behind their linguistic choices. The questionnaire was distributed to eight participants (4 Chinese mainland students and 4 Hong Kong students) who were postgraduate students at a Hong Kong university. Based on the data collection, this research finds out one similarity and two differences between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong students’ attitudes. The theories of identity construction and standard language ideology are further applied to analyze the reasons behind the similarities and differences and to evaluate how language attitudes intertwine with their identity construction and language ideology.

Keywords: accent, language attitudes, identity construction, language ideology, ELF communication

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Authors: Ogbonna Anyanwu

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Language attrition describes the non-pathological decrease in language that had previously been acquired by an individual. It can affect some aspects of a language use or all aspects of a language use. The Igbo language, (despite its status as one of the major Nigerian languages) based on recent studies is fast losing its population of first generation speakers and therefore, increasingly becoming endangered and may be heading to extinction as warned by UNESCO if there are no conscious efforts to reverse the situation. The present paper, which contributes to the Igbo endangerment studies, examines the attrition of an aspect of the Igbo language use and practice: the indigenous Igbo wives’ pet names. It surveys the level of attrition of indigenous Igbo wives’ pet names; names which Igbo married men christen their wives upon marriage. The wives’ pet names under investigation here are specifically those which a husband traditionally christens his wife to reflect the intimate marital bond between them and also to extol his wife as an integral part of him. These pet names morphologically, are always suffixed with the compound morpheme diya which is translated as 'her husband' as in enyidiya 'her husband’s friend', obidiya 'her husband’s heart', ahudiya 'her husband’s body', ugwudiya 'her husband’s honour’, etc. The data for the study were collected through questionnaire, and oral interview from 300 male and 100 female respondents of different age groups who are married, indigenous Igbo speakers and are resident in the study areas (two Local Government Areas from two different Senatorial Zones in Abia and Imo States, south-eastern, Nigeria). Findings from the study show almost a total attrition of the Igbo indigenous wives’ pet names under study across the different age groups. For the respondents within the age group of 25-54 years, there is no more christening and bearing of the indigenous Igbo wives’ pet names by men and women respectively. This age group gives and bears pet names which the group members feel are contemporary and in line with modernity. This is a piece of evidence that the Igbo indigenous pet names’ use and practice are no longer part of the lifestyle of this group of respondents and therefore, they cannot transmit such names to their own children. For the respondents within the age group of 55-74 years, the indigenous Igbo wives’ pet names are also fading fast with less than 20% retention within the age group of 65-74 years with very few traces within the group of 55-64 years. These findings are further evidence that this aspect of Igbo language use and culture is severely threatened and may be on the verge of being lost. The loss of this aspect of the Igbo language or any aspect of the language has huge implications for the gradual and steady endangerment of the language as predicted by UNESCO.

Keywords: attrition, endangerment, practice, Igbo

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Authors: Karen V. Lee

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The background and significance of this study involves research about a music teacher discovering how language development and learning can help her overcome harmful and lasting consequences from sexual violence. Education about intervention resources from language development that helps her cope with consequences influencing her career as teacher. Basic methodology involves the qualitative method of research as theoretical framework where the author is drawn into a deep storied reflection about political issues surrounding teachers who need to overcome social, psychological, and health risk behaviors from violence. Sub-themes involve available education from learning resources to ensure teachers receive social, emotional, physical, spiritual, and intervention resources that evoke visceral, emotional responses from the audience. Major findings share how language development and learning provide helpful resources to victims of violence. It is hoped the research dramatizes an episodic yet incomplete story that highlights the circumstances surrounding the protagonist’s life. In conclusion, the research has a reflexive storied framework that embraces harmful and lasting consequences from sexual violence. The reflexive story of the sensory experience critically seeks verisimilitude by evoking lifelike and believable feelings from others. Thus, the scholarly importance of using language development and learning for intervention resources can provide transformative aspects that contribute to social change. Overall, the circumstance surrounding the story about sexual violence is not uncommon in society. Language development and learning supports the moral mission to help teachers overcome sexual violence that socially impacts their professional lives as victims.

Keywords: intervention, language development and learning, sexual violence, story

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Authors: E. Krasnova, E. Bulgakova, V. Shchemelinin

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The paper deals with acoustic-spectrographic voice identification method in terms of its performance in non-native language speech. Performance evaluation is conducted by comparing the result of the analysis of recordings containing native language speech with recordings that contain foreign language speech. Our research is based on Tajik and Russian speech of Tajik native speakers due to the character of the criminal situation with drug trafficking. We propose a pilot experiment that represents a primary attempt enter the field.

Keywords: speaker identification, acoustic-spectrographic method, non-native speech, performance evaluation

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Authors: R. M. Kashim

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The study investigates the conceptual and procedural knowledge of rational number in primary school teachers, specifically, the primary school teachers level of conceptual knowledge about rational number and the primary school teachers level of procedural knowledge about rational numbers. The study was carried out in Bauchi metropolis in Bauchi state of Nigeria. A Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge Test was used as the instrument for data collection, 54 mathematics teachers in Bauchi primary schools were involved in the study. The collections were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The findings revealed that the primary school mathematics teachers in Bauchi metropolis posses a low level of conceptual knowledge of rational number and also possess a high level of Procedural knowledge of rational number. It is therefore recommended that to be effective, teachers teaching mathematics most posses a deep understanding of both conceptual and procedural knowledge. That way the most knowledgeable teachers in mathematics deliver highly effective rational number instructions. Teachers should not ignore the mathematical concept aspect of rational number teaching. This is because only the procedural aspect of Rational number is highlighted during instructions; this often leads to rote - learning of procedures without understanding the meanings. It is necessary for teachers to learn rational numbers teaching method that focus on both conceptual knowledge and procedural knowledge teaching.

Keywords: conceptual knowledge, primary school teachers, procedural knowledge, rational numbers

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Authors: Sufia Ferdousi

Abstract:

Child-friendly education (CFE) is very important for the children, especially the early year’s students, because it fosters the holistic development of a child. Teacher plays a key role in creating child-friendly education. This study intends to learn about child-friendly education in Bangladesh. The purpose of the study is to explore how CFE is being practiced in Bangladesh. The study attempted to fulfill the purpose through case study investigation. One school, named Nalanda, was selected for the study as it claims to run the school through CFE approach. The objective of the study was to identify, how this school is different from the other schools in Bangladesh, to explore overall teaching learning system like, curriculum, teaching strategies, assessments and to investigate the support system for Child Friendly Education provided to the teachers through training or mentoring. The nature of the case study was qualitative method to get maximum information from the students, parents, teachers and school authorities. The findings were based on 3 classroom observations, interviews with 1 teacher, 1 head teacher and 1 trainer, FGD with 10 students and 6 parents, were used to collect the data. It has been found that Nalanda is different than the other schools in Bangladesh in terms of, parents’ motivation about school curriculum, and sufficiency of teachers’ knowledge on joyful learning/child-friendly learning. The students took part in the extracurricular activities alongside the national curriculum. Teachers showed particular strength in the teaching learning strategies, using materials and assessment. And Nalanda gives strong support for teacher’s training. In conclusion, The Nalanda School in Dhaka was found appropriate for the requirements of Child-friendly education.

Keywords: child friendly education, overall teaching learning system, the requirements of child-friendly education, the alternative education approach

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Authors: Hai Zeng, Yisheng Li, Jincheng Huang, Chenghui Huang, Ying Zhang

Abstract:

Children are strong; the country strong, the development of children Basketball is a strategic advantage. Common forms of basketball equipment has been difficult to meet the needs of young children teaching the game of basketball, basketball development for 3-6 years old children in the form of appropriate teaching aids is a breakthrough basketball game teaching children bottlenecks, improve teaching critical path pleasure, but also the development of early childhood basketball a necessary requirement. In this study, literature, questionnaires, focus group interviews, comparative analysis, for domestic and foreign use of 12 kinds of basketball teaching aids (cloud computing MINI basketball, adjustable basketball MINI, MINI basketball court, shooting assist paw print ball, dribble goggles, dribbling machine, machine cartoon shooting, rebounding machine, against the mat, elastic belt, ladder, fitness ball), from fun and improve early childhood shooting technique, dribbling technology, as well as offensive and defensive rebounding against technology conduct research on conversion technology. The results show that by using appropriate forms of teaching children basketball aids, can effectively improve children's fun basketball game, targeted to improve a technology, different types of aids from different perspectives enrich the connotation of children basketball game. Recommended for children of color psychology, cartoon and environmentally friendly material production aids, and increase research efforts basketball aids children, encourage children to sports teachers aids applications.

Keywords: health and physical education field of curriculum outline, health fitness, sports and health curriculum reform, Taiwan, twelve years basic education

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Authors: Irfana M., Priyandi Kabasi

Abstract:

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty acquiring and using language despite having all the requirements of cognitive skills to support language acquisition. These children have normal non-verbal intelligence, hearing, and oral-motor skills, with no history of social/emotional problems or significant neurological impairment. Nevertheless, their language acquisition lags behind their peers. Phonological complexity can be considered to be the major factor that causes the inaccurate production of speech in this population. However, the implementation of various ranges of complex phonological stimuli in the treatment session of SLI should be followed for a better prognosis of speech accuracy. Hence there is a need to study the levels of phonological complexity. The present study consisted of 7 individuals who were diagnosed with SLI and 10 developmentally normal children. All of them were Hindi speakers with both genders and their age ranged from 4 to 5 years. There were 4 sets of stimuli; among them were minimal contrast vs maximal contrast nonwords, minimal coarticulation vs maximal coarticulation nonwords, minimal contrast vs maximal contrast words and minimal coarticulation vs maximal coarticulation words. Each set contained 10 stimuli and participants were asked to repeat each stimulus. Results showed that production of maximal contrast was significantly accurate, followed by minimal coarticulation, minimal contrast and maximal coarticulation. A similar trend was shown for both word and non-word categories of stimuli. The phonological complexity effect was evident in the study for each participant group. Moreover, present study findings can be implemented for the management of SLI, specifically for the selection of stimuli.

Keywords: coarticulation, minimal contrast, phonological complexity, specific language impairment

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Authors: Neha Narayanan

Abstract:

The paper tries to explore the role of language in determining spaces occupied by women in everyday lives. It is inspired from an ongoing action research work which employs ‘immersion’- arriving at a research problematic through community research, as a methodology in a Kondh adivasi village, Kirkalpadu located in Rayagada district of the Indian state of Odisha. In the dominant development discourse, language is associated with either preservation or conservation of endangered language or empowerment through language. Beyond these, is the discourse of language as a structure, with the hegemonic quality to organise lifeworld in a specific manner. This rigid structure leads to an experience of constriction of space for women. In Kirkalpadu, the action research work is with young and unmarried women of the age 15-25. During daytime, these women are either in the agricultural field or in the bari -the backyard of the house whose rooms are linearly arranged one after the other ending with the kitchen followed by an open space called bari (in Odia) which is an intimate and gendered space- where they are not easily visible. They justify the experience of restriction in mobility and fear of moving out of the village alone by the argument that the place and the men are nihi-aaeh (not good). These women, who have dropped out of school early to contribute to the (surplus) labour requirement in the household, want to learn English to be able to read signboards when they are on the road, to be able to fill forms at a bank and use mobile phones to communicate with their romantic partner(s). But the incapacity to have within one’s grasp the province of language and the incapacity to take the mobile phone to the kind of requirements marked by the above mentioned impossible transactions with space restricts them to the bari of the house. The paper concludes by seeking to explore the possibilities of learning and rethinking languages which takes into cognizance the gendered experience of women and the desire of women to cross the borders and occupy spaces restricted to them.

Keywords: action research, gendered experience, language, space

Procedia PDF Downloads 171