Search results for: Japanese learners of English

Authors: Sari Myréen

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of multisensory elements in enhancing and facilitating foreign language acquisition among adult students in a language classroom. The use of multisensory elements enables the creation of a student-centered classroom, where the focus is on individual learner’s language learning process, perceptions and motivation. Multisensory language learning is a pedagogical approach where the language learner uses all the senses more effectively than in a traditional in-class environment. Language learning is facilitated due to multisensory stimuli which increase the number of cognitive connections in the learner and take into consideration different types of learners. A living lab called Multisensory Space creates a relaxed and receptive state in the learners through various multisensory stimuli, and thus promotes their natural foreign language acquisition. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in two questionnaire inquiries among the Finnish students of a higher education institute at the end of their basic French courses in December 2014 and 2016. The inquiries discussed the effects of multisensory elements on the students’ motivation to study French as well as their learning outcomes. The results show that the French classes in the Multisensory Space provide the students with an encouraging and pleasant learning environment, which has a positive impact on their motivation to study the foreign language as well as their language learning outcomes.

Keywords: Foreign language acquisition, foreign language learning, higher education, multisensory learning, pedagogical approach, transcultural learning.

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Authors: Chandrakala Varatharajoo, Adelina Binti Asmawi, Nabeel Abdallah Mohammad Abedalaziz

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This study investigated the impact of inflectional and derivational morphemic analysis awareness on ESL secondary school students’ vocabulary learning strategy. The quasi-experimental study was conducted with 106 low proficiency secondary school students in two experimental groups (inflectional and derivational) and one control group. The students’ vocabulary acquisition was assessed through two measures: Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary- Morphemic Test in the pretest and posttest before and after an intervention programme. Results of ANCOVA revealed that both the experimental groups achieved a significant score in Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary-Morphemic Test. However, the inflectional group obtained a fairly higher score than the derivational group. Thus, the results indicated that ESL low proficiency secondary school students performed better on inflectional morphemic awareness as compared to derivatives. The results also showed that the awareness of inflectional morphology contributed more on the vocabulary acquisition. Importantly, learning inflectional morphology can help ESL low proficiency secondary school students to develop both morphemic awareness and vocabulary gain. Theoretically, these findings show that not all morphemes are equally useful to students for their language development. Practically, these findings indicate that morphological instruction should at least be included in remediation and instructional efforts with struggling learners across all grade levels, allowing them to focus on meaning within the word before they attempt the text in large for better comprehension. Also, by methodologically, by conducting individualized intervention and assessment this study provided fresh empirical evidence to support the existing literature on morphemic analysis awareness and vocabulary learning strategy. Thus, a major pedagogical implication of the study is that morphemic analysis awareness strategy is a definite boon for ESL secondary school students in learning English vocabulary.

Keywords: ESL, instruction, morphemic analysis, vocabulary.

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Authors: Reiko Yamamoto

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This paper reports on a joint research project in which a researcher in applied linguistics and elementary school teachers in Japan explored new ways to realize emotional synchrony in a classroom in childhood education. The primary purpose of this project was to develop a cross-curriculum of the first language (L1) and second language (L2) based on the concept of plurilingualism. This concept is common in Europe, and can-do statements are used in forming the standard of linguistic proficiency in any language; these are attributed to the action-oriented approach in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). CEFR has a basic tenet of language education: improving communicative competence. Can-do statements are classified into five categories based on the tenet: reading, writing, listening, speaking/ interaction, and speaking/ speech. The first approach of this research was to specify the linguistic proficiency of the children, who are still developing their L1. Elementary school teachers brainstormed and specified the linguistic proficiency of the children as the competency needed to synchronize with others – teachers or peers – physically and mentally. The teachers formed original can-do statements in language proficiency on the basis of the idea that emotional synchrony leads to understanding others in communication. The research objectives are to determine the effect of language education based on the newly developed curriculum and can-do statements. The participants of the experiment were 72 third-graders in Uji Elementary School, Japan. For the experiment, 17 items were developed from the can-do statements formed by the teachers and divided into the same five categories as those of CEFR. A can-do checklist consisting of the items was created. The experiment consisted of three steps: first, the students evaluated themselves using the can-do checklist at the beginning of the school year. Second, one year of instruction was given to the students in Japanese and English classes (six periods a week). Third, the students evaluated themselves using the same can-do checklist at the end of the school year. The results of statistical analysis showed an enhancement of linguistic proficiency of the students. The average results of the post-check exceeded that of the pre-check in 12 out of the 17 items. Moreover, significant differences were shown in four items, three of which belonged to the same category: speaking/ interaction. It is concluded that children can get to understand others’ minds through physical and emotional synchrony. In particular, emotional synchrony is what teachers should aim at in childhood education.

Keywords: Elementary school education, emotional synchrony, language proficiency, sympathy with others.

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Authors: Munazza A. Mirza, Khawar Khurshid

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Individuals are generally associated with different learning styles, which have been explored extensively in recent past. The learning styles refer to the potential of an individual by which s/he can easily comprehend and retain information. Among various learning style models, VARK is the most accepted model which categorizes the learners with respect to their sensory characteristics. Based on the number of preferred learning modes, the learners can be categorized as uni-modal, bi-modal, tri-modal, or quad/multi-modal. Although there is a prevalent belief in the learning styles, however, the model is not being frequently and effectively utilized in the higher education. This research describes the identification model to validate teacher’s didactic practice and student’s performance linkage with the learning styles. The identification model is recommended to check the effective application and evaluation of the various learning styles. The proposed model is a guideline to effectively implement learning styles inventory in order to ensure that it will validate performance linkage with learning styles. If performance is linked with learning styles, this may help eradicate the distrust on learning style theory. For this purpose, a comprehensive study was conducted to compare and understand how VARK inventory model is being used to identify learning preferences and their correlation with learner’s performance. A comparative analysis of the findings of these studies is presented to understand the learning styles of tertiary students in various disciplines. It is concluded with confidence that the learning styles of students cannot be associated with any specific discipline. Furthermore, there is not enough empirical proof to link performance with learning styles.

Keywords: Learning style, VARK, sensory preferences, identification model, didactic practices.

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Authors: Ayşe Yurdakul, Eckehard Schnieder

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Because of the increasing multidisciplinarity and multilinguality, communication problems in different technical fields grow more and more. Therefore, each technical field has its own specific language, terminology which is characterized by the different definition of terms. In addition to definition problems, there are also relation problems between terms. Among these problems of relation, there are the synonymy, antonymy, hypernymy/hyponymy, ambiguity, risk of confusion and translation problems etc.

Thus, the terminology management system iglos of the Institute for Traffic Safety and Automation Engineering of the Technische Universität Braunschweig has the target to solve these problems by a methodological standardisation of term definitions with the aid of the iglos sign model and iglos relation types. The focus of this paper should be on solving definition and relation problems between terms in English navigation terminology.

Keywords: Iglos, iglos sign model, methodological resolutions, navigation terminology, common language, technical language, positioning, definition problems, relation problems.

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Authors: B. Ratchaneepun, N.S. Bardell

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It is recognized that people are the main drivers in almost all the processes that affect airworthiness assurance. This is especially true in the area of aircraft maintenance, which is an essential part of continuing airworthiness. This work investigates what impact English language proficiency, the intersection of the military and Thai cultures, and the lack of initial and continuing human factors training have on the work performance of maintenance personnel in the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF). A quantitative research method based on a cross-sectional survey was used to gather data about these three key aspects of “people” in a military airworthiness environment. 30 questions were developed addressing the crucial topics of English language proficiency, impact of culture, and human factors training. The officers and the non-commissioned officers (NCOs) who work for the Aeronautical Engineering Divisions in the RTAF comprised the survey participants. The survey data were analysed to support various hypotheses by using a t-test method. English competency in the RTAF is very important since all of the service manuals for Thai military aircraft are written in English. Without such competency, it is difficult for maintenance staff to perform tasks and correctly interpret the relevant maintenance manual instructions; any misunderstandings could lead to potential accidents. The survey results showed that the officers appreciated the importance of this more than the NCOs, who are the people actually doing the hands-on maintenance work. Military culture focuses on the success of a given mission, and leverages the power distance between the lower and higher ranks. In Thai society, a power distance also exists between younger and older citizens. In the RTAF, such a combination tends to inhibit a just reporting culture and hence hinders safety. The survey results confirmed this, showing that the older people and higher ranks involved with RTAF aircraft maintenance believe that the workplace has a positive safety culture and climate, whereas the younger people and lower ranks think the opposite. The final area of consideration concerned human factors training and non-technical skills training. The survey revealed that those participants who had previously attended such courses appreciated its value and were aware of its benefits in daily life. However, currently there is no regulation in the RTAF to mandate recurrent training to maintain such knowledge and skills. The findings from this work suggest that the people involved in assuring the continuing airworthiness of the RTAF would benefit from: (i) more rigorous requirements and standards in the recruitment, initial training and continuation training regarding English competence; (ii) the development of a strong safety culture that exploits the uniqueness of both the military culture and the Thai culture; and (iii) providing more initial and recurrent training in human factors and non-technical skills.

Keywords: Aircraft maintenance, continuing airworthiness, military culture, people, Royal Thai Air Force.

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Authors: Nima Shakouri Masouleh, Razieh Bahraminezhad Jooneghani

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The study investigated the educational implications that can be derived from the work of a variety of celebrated figures such as Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner that will be helpful in the field of language learning. However, the writer believed these views were previously expressed not full–fledged by Comenius who has been described by Howatt (1984) as a genius–the one that the history of language teaching can claim. And we owe to him more than anyone.

Keywords: restructuring, assimilation, equiliberation

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Authors: Basyir Yaman, Fades Br. Gultom

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The picture and pattern of Islamic education in the Prophet's period in Mecca and Medina is the history of the past that we need to bring back. The Basic Education Institute called Kuttab. Kuttab or Maktab comes from the word kataba which means to write. The popular Kuttab in the Prophet’s period aims to resolve the illiteracy in the Arab community. In Indonesia, this Institution has 25 branches; one of them is located in Semarang (i.e. Kuttab Al-Fatih). Kuttab Al-Fatih as a non-formal institution of Islamic education is reserved for children aged 5-12 years. The independently designed curriculum is a distinctive feature that distinguishes between Kuttab Al-Fatih curriculum and the formal institutional curriculum in Indonesia. The curriculum includes the faith and the Qur’an. Kuttab Al-Fatih has been licensed as a Community Activity Learning Center under the direct supervision and guidance of the National Education Department. Here, we focus to describe the implementation of curriculum Kuttab Al-Fatih Semarang (i.e. faith and al-Qur’an). After that, we determine the relevance between the implementation of the Kuttab Al-Fatih education system with the formal education system in Indonesia. This research uses literature review and field research qualitative methods. We obtained the data from the head of Kuttab Al-Fatih Semarang, vice curriculum, faith coordinator, al-Qur’an coordinator, as well as the guardians of learners and the learners. The result of this research is the relevance of education system in Kuttab Al-Fatih Semarang about education system in Indonesia. Kuttab Al-Fatih Semarang emphasizes character building through a curriculum designed in such a way and combines thematic learning models in modules.

Keywords: Islamic education system, implementation of curriculum, Kuttab Al-Fatih semarang, formal education system in Indonesia.

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Authors: B. O. Diyaolu

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The globalization of football especially among youth over the decade is uprising. Nigeria youth displaying football jerseys at every opportunity is an acceptance of football globalization. The Love for English Premier League (EPL) football jersey is very strong among Nigeria fans. Football club jerseys of the EPL are a common sports product among fans in Nigeria. This study investigates the contribution of football club jerseys towards EPL fans’ loyalty in Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was used for the study. The population consists of EPL fans in Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique (fish bowl without replacement) was used to select two states from the six geo-political zones. Purposive sampling technique was used to pick eight viewing centres while accidental sampling technique was used to pick five vendor stands from each State. An average of 250 respondents was selected from each state. A total of 3,200 respondents participated in the research. Two research instruments were used. A self-developed structured questionnaire on Football Jersey Scale (FJS): The instrument consists of 10 items. Fans Loyalty Scale (FLS): The instrument was modified from the psychological commitment to team (PCT) scale, and consists of 20 items. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.72 and 0.75 was obtained, respectively. The hypothesis was tested at 0.05 significant levels. Data were analysed using frequency, percentages count, pie chart and multiple regressions. The result showed that the b-value of football club jersey is 0.148 also the standard regression coefficient (Beta) is 0.089. The t = 4.759 is statistically significant at p = 0.000. This signified a relative contribution of football club jersey on EPL fans loyalty in Nigeria. Club jersey, which is the most outstanding identifier of every club, was found to significantly predict loyalty. The jersey on the body of the fan has become the site for a declaration of loyalty which becomes available for social interaction and negotiation. The Nigerian local league clubs in an attempt to keep Nigerian fans loyal must borrow a leaf from their European counterparts.

Keywords: Club jersey, English Premier League, football fans, Nigeria youth.

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Authors: Amah Nnachi Lofty, Oyefeso Olufemi, Ibiam Udu Ama

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New and more powerful communications technologies continue to emerge at a rapid pace and their uses in education are widespread and the impact remarkable in the developing societies. This study investigates Mobile Collaboration Learning Technique (MCLT) on learners’ outcome among students in tertiary institutions of developing nations (a case of Nigeria students). It examines the significance of retention achievement scores of students taught using mobile collaboration and conventional method. The sample consisted of 120 students using Stratified random sampling method. Five research questions and hypotheses were formulated, and tested at 0.05 level of significance. A student achievement test (SAT) was made of 40 items of multiple-choice objective type, developed and validated for data collection by professionals. The SAT was administered to students as pre-test and post-test. The data were analyzed using t-test statistic to test the hypotheses. The result indicated that students taught using MCLT performed significantly better than their counterparts using the conventional method of instruction. Also, there was no significant difference in the post-test performance scores of male and female students taught using MCLT. Based on the findings, the following submissions was made that: Mobile collaboration system be encouraged in the institutions to boost knowledge sharing among learners, workshop and training should be organized to train teachers on the use of this technique, schools and government should consistently align curriculum standard to trends of technological dictates and formulate policies and procedures towards responsible use of MCLT.

Keywords: Education, communication, learning, mobile collaboration, technology.

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Authors: T. Arakawa, H. Sato

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There are many drivers who feel right A pillar of Japanese right-hand-drive car preventing visibility on turning right or left at intersection. On the other hand, there is a report that almost pedestrian accident is caused by the delay of finding pedestrian by drivers and this is found by drivers’ eye movement. Thus, we developed the evaluation method of quantification using drivers’ eye movement data by least squares estimation and we applied this method to commercial vehicle and evaluation the visibility. It is suggested that visibility of vehicle can be quantified and estimated by linear model obtained from experimental eye fixation data and information of vehicle dimensions.

Keywords: Eye fixation, modeling, obstacle feeling, right A pillar.

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Authors: Boon Yih Mah

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Web-based Cognitive Writing Instruction (WeCWI)’s contribution towards language development can be divided into linguistic and non-linguistic perspectives. In linguistic perspective, WeCWI focuses on the literacy and language discoveries, while the cognitive and psychological discoveries are the hubs in non-linguistic perspective. In linguistic perspective, WeCWI draws attention to free reading and enterprises, which are supported by the language acquisition theories. Besides, the adoption of process genre approach as a hybrid guided writing approach fosters literacy development. Literacy and language developments are interconnected in the communication process; hence, WeCWI encourages meaningful discussion based on the interactionist theory that involves input, negotiation, output, and interactional feedback. Rooted in the elearning interaction-based model, WeCWI promotes online discussion via synchronous and asynchronous communications, which allows interactions happened among the learners, instructor, and digital content. In non-linguistic perspective, WeCWI highlights on the contribution of reading, discussion, and writing towards cognitive development. Based on the inquiry models, learners’ critical thinking is fostered during information exploration process through interaction and questioning. Lastly, to lower writing anxiety, WeCWI develops the instructional tool with supportive features to facilitate the writing process. To bring a positive user experience to the learner, WeCWI aims to create the instructional tool with different interface designs based on two different types of perceptual learning style.

Keywords: WeCWI, literacy discovery, language discovery, cognitive discovery, psychological discovery.

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Authors: Nien-Zheng Yew, Kung-Ming Tiong, Su-Ting Yong

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Number Link is a Japanese logic puzzle where pairs of same numbers are connected using lines. Number Link can be regarded as a dynamic multiple travelers, multiple entries and exits maze, where the walls and passages are dynamically changing as the travelers move. In this paper, we apply the Tremaux’s algorithm to solve Number Link puzzles of size 8x8, 10x10 and 15x20. The algorithm works well and produces a solution for puzzles of size 8x8 and 10x10. However, solving a puzzle of size 15x20 requires high computer processing power and is time consuming.

Keywords: Number Link, maze, puzzle, Tremaux’s algorithm

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Authors: Hiraku Nunomiya, Takuo Ichiju, Yoshiyuki Higuchi

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In the management of industrial waste, conversion from the use of paper invoices to electronic forms is currently under way in developed countries. Difficulties in such computerization include the lack of synchronization between the actual goods and the corresponding data managed by the server. Consequently, a system which utilizes the incorporation of a QR code in connection with the waste material has been developed. The code is read at each stage, from discharge until disposal, and progress at each stage can be easily reported. This system can be linked with Japanese public digital authentication service of waste, taking advantage of its good points, and can be used to submit reports to the regulatory authorities. Its usefulness was confirmed by a verification test, and put into actual practice.

Keywords: Infectious Waste, Electronic Manifest, Real Time Management, QR code.

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Authors: Hossein Ahmadi, Ogholgol Nazari

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The necessity of grading and sequencing tasks has led to the development of different criteria in this regard. However, appropriateness of these criteria in different situations is less discussed. This paper attempts to shed more light on the priority of different criteria in relation with different factors including learners, teachers, educational, and cultural factors.

Keywords: Criteria, Grading, Sequencing, Language learning tasks.

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Authors: Valdênia Carvalho e Almeida

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The goal of the present study is to investigate the semantic preference of the most frequent adjectives in research articles through a corpus-based analysis of texts published in journals in Applied Linguistics (AL). The corpus used in this study contains texts published in the period from 2014 to 2018 in the three journals: Language Learning and Technology; English for Academic Purposes, and TESOL Quaterly, totaling more than one million words. A corpus-based analysis was carried out on the corpus to identify the most frequent adjectives that co-occurred in the three journals. By observing the concordance lines of the adjectives and analyzing the words they associated with, the semantic preferences of each adjective were determined. Later, the AL corpus analysis was compared to the investigation of the same adjectives in a corpus of Chemistry. This second part of the study aimed to identify possible differences and similarities between the two corpora in relation to the use of the adjectives in research articles from both areas. The results show that there are some preferences which seem to be closely related not only to the academic genre of the texts but also to the specific domain of the discipline and, to a lesser extent, to the context of research in each journal. This research illustrates a possible contribution of Corpus Linguistics to explore the concept of semantic preference in more detail, considering the complex nature of the phenomenon.

Keywords: Applied linguistics, corpus linguistics, chemistry, research article, semantic preference.

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Authors: Anand Dass, Hiroaki Murakami

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The paper outlines the drivers behind the movement from products to solutions in the Hi-Tech Business-to-Business markets. The paper lists out the challenges in enabling the transformation from products to solutions and also attempts to explore strategic and operational recommendations based on the authors- factual experiences with Japanese Hi-tech manufacturing organizations. Organizations in the Hi-Tech Business-to-Business markets are increasingly being compelled to move to a solutions model from the conventional products model. Despite the added complexity of solutions, successful technology commercialization can be achieved by making prudent choices in defining a relevant solutions model, by backing the solution model through appropriate organizational design, and by overhauling the new product development process and supporting infrastructure.

Keywords: Technology commercialization, Solutions, Hi-Tech companies, Japan, Management of technology

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Authors: Kitda Praraththajariya

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The main purpose of this research was to study how to communicate the identity of the Bangpoo, Samu tPrakan province for ecotourism. The qualitative data was collected through studying related materials, exploring the area, in-depth interviews with three groups of people: three directly responsible officers who were key informants of the district, twenty foreign tourists and five Thai tourist guides. A content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The two main findings of the study were as follows:

1. The identity of Bangpoo, Samut Prakan province. This establishment was near the Mouth of the Gulf of Thailand for normal people and tourists, consisting of rest accommodations. There are restaurants where food and drinks are served, rich mangrove forests, Banpoo seaside resort and mangrove trees. Bangpoo seaside resort is characterized by muddy beacheswhere the greatest number of seagulls can be seen from March to May each year.
2. The communication of the identity of Bangpoo, Samut Prakan province which the researcher could find and design to present in English materials can be summed up in 3 items: 1) The history of Bangpoo, Samut Prakan province 2) The Learning center of Ecotourism: Seagulls and Mangrove forest 3) How to keep Banpoo, Samut Prakran province for ecotourism.

Keywords: Foreigner tourists, signified, semiotics, ecotourism.

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Authors: Vidhu Mitha Goutham, Ruma Mukherjee

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The low availability of well-trained, unlimited, dynamic-access models for specific languages makes it hard for corporate users to adopt quick translation techniques and incorporate them into product solutions. As translation tasks increasingly require a dynamic sequence learning curve; stable, cost-free opensource models are scarce. We survey and compare current translation techniques and propose a modified sequence to sequence model repurposed with attention techniques. Sequence learning using an encoder-decoder model is now paving the path for higher precision levels in translation. Using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) encoder and a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) decoder background, we use Fairseq tools to produce an end-to-end bilingually trained Spanish-English machine translation model including source language detection. We acquire competitive results using a duo-lingo-corpus trained model to provide for prospective, ready-made plug-in use for compound sentences and document translations. Our model serves a decent system for large, organizational data translation needs. While acknowledging its shortcomings and future scope, it also identifies itself as a well-optimized deep neural network model and solution.

Keywords: Attention, encoder-decoder, Fairseq, Seq2Seq, Spanish, translation.

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Authors: Yasusi Kanada

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Objects are usually horizontally sliced when printed by 3D printers. Therefore, if an object to be printed, such as a collection of fibers, originally has natural direction in shape, the printed direction contradicts with the natural direction. By using proper tools, such as field-oriented 3D paint software, field-oriented solid modelers, field-based tool-path generation software, and non-horizontal FDM 3D printers, the natural direction can be modeled and objects can be printed in a direction that is consistent with the natural direction. This consistence results in embodiment of momentum or force in expressions of the printed object. To achieve this goal, several design and manufacturing problems, but not all, have been solved. An application of this method is (Japanese) 3D calligraphy.

Keywords: 3D printing, Three-dimensional printing, Solid free-form fabrication, SFF, Fused deposition modeling, FDM, Additive manufacturing.

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Authors: Kitda Praraththajariya

Abstract:

The main purpose of this research was to study how to communicate the identity of the Mueang district, SamutSongkram province for ecotourism. The qualitative data was collected through studying related materials, exploring the area, in-depth interviews with three groups of people: three directly responsible officers who were key informants of the district, twenty foreign tourists and five Thai tourist guides. A content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The two main findings of the study were as follows: 1. The identity of Amphur (District) Mueang, SamutSongkram province. This establishment was near the Mouth of Maekong River for normal people and tourists, consisting of rest accommodations. There are restaurants where food and drinks are served, rich mangrove forests, Hoy Lod (Razor Clam) and mangrove trees. Don Hoy Lod, is characterized by muddy beaches, is a coastal wetland for Ramsar Site. It is at 1099th ranging where the greatest number of Hoy Lod (Razor Clam) can be seen from March to May each year. 2. The communication of the identity of AmphurMueang, SamutSongkram province which the researcher could find and design to present in English materials can be summed up in 4 items: 1) The history of AmphurMueang, SamutSongkram province 2) WatPhetSamutWorrawihan 3) The Learning source of Ecotourism: Don Hoy Lod and Mangrove forest 4) How to keep AmphurMueang, SamutSongkram province for ecotourism.

Keywords: Foreigner tourists, signified, semiotics, ecotourism.

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Authors: Sheena Christabel Pravin, M. Palanivelan

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Speech disfluencies are common in spontaneous speech. The primary purpose of this study was to distinguish linguistic disfluencies from stuttering disfluencies in bilingual Tamil–English (TE) speaking children. The secondary purpose was to determine whether their disfluencies are mediated by native language dominance and/or on an early onset of developmental stuttering at childhood. A detailed study was carried out to identify the prosodic and acoustic features that uniquely represent the disfluent regions of speech. This paper focuses on statistical modeling of repetitions, prolongations, pauses and interjections in the speech corpus encompassing bilingual spontaneous utterances from school going children – English and Tamil. Two classifiers including Hidden Markov Models (HMM) and the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), which is a class of feed-forward artificial neural network, were compared in the classification of disfluencies. The results of the classifiers document the patterns of disfluency in spontaneous speech samples of school-aged children to distinguish between Children Who Stutter (CWS) and Children with Language Impairment CLI). The ability of the models in classifying the disfluencies was measured in terms of F-measure, Recall, and Precision.

Keywords: Bilingual, children who stutter, children with language impairment, Hidden Markov Models, multi-layer perceptron, linguistic disfluencies, stuttering disfluencies.

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Authors: Erika Pigliapoco, Valerio Freschi, Alessandro Bogliolo

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This work presents a new phonetic transcription system based on a tree of hierarchical pronunciation rules expressed as context-specific grapheme-phoneme correspondences. The tree is automatically inferred from a phonetic dictionary by incrementally analyzing deeper context levels, eventually representing a minimum set of exhaustive rules that pronounce without errors all the words in the training dictionary and that can be applied to out-of-vocabulary words. The proposed approach improves upon existing rule-tree-based techniques in that it makes use of graphemes, rather than letters, as elementary orthographic units. A new linear algorithm for the segmentation of a word in graphemes is introduced to enable outof- vocabulary grapheme-based phonetic transcription. Exhaustive rule trees provide a canonical representation of the pronunciation rules of a language that can be used not only to pronounce out-of-vocabulary words, but also to analyze and compare the pronunciation rules inferred from different dictionaries. The proposed approach has been implemented in C and tested on Oxford British English and Basic English. Experimental results show that grapheme-based rule trees represent phonetically sound rules and provide better performance than letter-based rule trees.

Keywords: Automatic phonetic transcription, pronunciation rules, hierarchical tree inference.

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Authors: Somi Nah, Timothy Yoonsuk Lee, Jinhwan Yu

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In films, visual effects have played the role of expressing realities more realistically or describing imaginations as if they are real. Such images are immediated images representing realism, and the logic of immediation for the reality of images has been perceived dominant in visual effects. In order for immediation to have an identity as immediation, there should be the opposite concept hypermediation. In the mid 2000s, hypermediated images were settled as a code of mass culture in Asia. Thus, among Asian films highly popular in those days, this study selected five displaying hypermediated images – 2 Korean, 2 Japanese, and 1 Thailand movies – and examined the semiotic meanings of such images using Roland Barthes- directional and implicated meaning analysis and Metz-s paradigmatic analysis method, focusing on how hypermediated images work in the general context of the films, how they are associated with spaces, and what meanings they try to carry.

Keywords: Asian Films, Hypermediated Images, Semiotics, Visual Effects

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Authors: Rimpi Rani

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In the 2000s, a new migration trend of highly skilled Indian professionals towards Japan has appeared. This paper examines the factors that set off the incoming of highly skilled Indian professionals in Japan, mainly focusing on IT professionals’ immigration, and the reasons of the increase in their number. It investigates the influence of four factors: The Japanese immigration policy, the bilateral relations between India and Japan, the higher education system in India and the American H-1B visa policy with its cap system. This study concludes that increased and continuous supply of highly skilled Indian professionals have intensified the competition for migration to traditional destinations like the USA. This led Indian professionals   to consider other options such as Japan.

Keywords: International migration, India, Japan, highly skilled professionals.

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Authors: H. Izakian, S. A. Monadjemi, B. Tork Ladani, K. Zamanifar

Abstract:

Nowadays, OCR systems have got several applications and are increasingly employed in daily life. Much research has been done regarding the identification of Latin, Japanese, and Chinese characters. However, very little investigation has been performed regarding Farsi/Arabic characters recognition. Probably the reason is difficulty and complexity of those characters identification compared to the others and limitation of IT activities in Farsi and Arabic speaking countries. In this paper, a technique has been employed to identify isolated Farsi/Arabic characters. A chain code based algorithm along with other significant peculiarities such as number and location of dots and auxiliary parts, and the number of holes existing in the isolated character has been used in this study to identify Farsi/Arabic characters. Experimental results show the relatively high accuracy of the method developed when it is tested on several standard Farsi fonts.

Keywords: Farsi characters, OCR, feature extraction, chain code.

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Authors: Ena Bhattacharyya, Zullina H. Shaari

Abstract:

Till date, English as a Second Language (ESL) educators involved in teaching language and communication to engineering students face an uphill task in developing graduate communicative competency. This challenge is accentuated by the apparent lack of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) materials for engineering students in the engineering curriculum. As such, most ESL educators are forced to play multiple roles. They don tasks such as curriculum designers, material writers and teachers with limited knowledge of the disciplinary content. Previous research indicates that prospective professional engineers should possess some sub-sets of competency: technical, linguistic oral immediacy, meta-cognitive and rhetorical explanatory competence. Another study revealed that engineering students need to be equipped with technical and linguistic oral immediacy competence. However, little is known whether these competency needs are in line with the educators- perceptions of communicative competence. This paper examines the best mix of communicative competence subsets that create the magic for engineering students in technical oral presentations. For the purpose of this study, two groups of educators were interviewed. These educators were language and communication lecturers involved in teaching a speaking course and content experts who assess students- technical oral presentations at tertiary level. The findings indicate that these two groups differ in their perceptions

Keywords: Communicative competence, Content experts, Educators, Technical Oral Presentations

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Authors: Takashi Yamauchi, Anju Sudo, Yoshihiko Tanno

Abstract:

Recently, it has been suggested that thought control strategies aimed at controlling unwanted thoughts may be used to cope with paranoid thoughts in both clinical and nonclinical samples. The current study aims to examine the type of thought control strategies that were associated with the frequency of paranoid thoughts in nonclinical samples. A total of 159 Japanese undergraduate students completed the two scales–the Paranoia Checklist and the Thought Control Questionnaire. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis demonstrated that worry-based control strategies were associated with paranoid thoughts, whereas distraction- and social-based control strategies were inversely associated with paranoid thoughts. Our findings suggest that in a nonclinical population, worry-based strategies may be especially maladaptive, whereas distraction- and social-based strategies may be adaptive to paranoid thoughts.

Keywords: Nonclinical population, paranoid thoughts, thoughtcontrol strategies.

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Authors: Tomohiro Ando, Satoshi Yamashita

Abstract:

The objective of this study is to propose a statistical modeling method which enables simultaneous term structure estimation of the risk-free interest rate, hazard and loss given default, incorporating the characteristics of the bond issuing company such as credit rating and financial information. A reduced form model is used for this purpose. Statistical techniques such as spline estimation and Bayesian information criterion are employed for parameter estimation and model selection. An empirical analysis is conducted using the information on the Japanese bond market data. Results of the empirical analysis confirm the usefulness of the proposed method.

Keywords: Empirical Bayes, Hazard term structure, Loss given default.

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Authors: Luz Janeth Ospina M.

Abstract:

The fourth industrial revolution is changing the role of education substantially and, therefore, the role of instructors and learners at all levels. Education 4.0 is an imminent response to the needs of a globalized world where humans and technology are being aligned to enable endless possibilities, among them the need for students, as digital natives, to communicate effectively in at least one language besides their mother tongue, and also the requirement of developing theirs. This is an exploratory study in which a control group (N = 21), all of the students of Spanish as a foreign language at the university level, after taking a Spanish class, responded to an online questionnaire about the engagement, atmosphere, and environment in which their course was delivered. These aspects considered in the survey were relative to the instructor’s teaching style, including: (a) active, hands-on learning; (b) flexibility for in-class activities, easily switching between small group work, individual work, and whole-class discussion; and (c) integrating technology into the classroom. Strongly believing in these principles, the instructor deliberately taught the course in a SCALE-UP room, as it could facilitate such a positive and encouraging learning environment. These aspects are trends related to Education 4.0 and have become integral to the instructor’s pedagogical stance that calls for a constructive-affective role, instead of a transmissive one. As expected, with a learning environment that (a) fosters student engagement and (b) improves student outcomes, the subjects were highly engaged, which was partially due to the learning environment. An overwhelming majority (all but one) of students agreed or strongly agreed that the atmosphere and the environment were ideal. Outcomes of this study are relevant and indicate that it is about time for teachers to build up a meaningful correlation between humans and technology. We should see the trends of Education 4.0 not as a threat but as practices that should be in the hands of critical and creative instructors whose pedagogical stance responds to the needs of the learners in the 21st century.

Keywords: Active learning, education 4.0, higher education, pedagogical stance.

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