ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Education is a one of the fast evolving spheres of knowledge in the world. Ever since the ancient times there have been multiple educators who practiced and promoted different approaches to teaching and learning. These days, language learning practice is undergoing a variety of changes and innovations. However, the theory of it is based on the works of psychologists and educators who worked in the 20 th century such as Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Jerome Bruner. As a result, the modern education is a complex and carefully crafted mixture of the wisdom of generations and the latest technologies. At the first sight, the theories of the educators and psychologists of the 20 th century are very different in their bases and seem impossible to combine. However, regardless of some noticeable differences, their overall focus was to deliver a learner-centered, diverse, and flexible approach that allows creating a comfortable and encouraging environment for the student. This paper serves to demonstrate how the approaches of the well-known psychologists of the past can be applied in the contemporary classroom of language learners using various activities and integrating modern technologies. The paper was written as a reference for the teachers and covers such issues as the concept of discourse and its types, listening and speaking as the activities in language learning, the meaning of communication and personal involvement, and the importance of the use of technologies in the modern classroom. The questions I attempted to answer using the presented activities in the classroom concerned the comprehensibility of the language input, the encouragement of the students’ enthusiasm for learning, and the best strategies to facilitate the language learning among the young students. Theories and Activities Learning a foreign language can be divided into tasks targeting literacy skills (written language) and oral skills (spoken language). The theory of language learning is based on the approaches of several outstanding educational psychologists of the past – Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Jerome Bruner. The approach promoted by Piaget relied on the belief that children are learners by nature and are capable of active learning independently (Cameron, 2001). According to Piaget’s constructivist approach knowledge is a subjective rather than objective concept, and it is constructed individually by each learner (Reusser, 2000). In the theory developed by Vygotsky, social interaction plays the most crucial role in learning (Cameron, 2001). In one of her works, DeVries (2000) noted that the application of
Cooperative learning intervention is based on the idea of creating a learning community. The principles of cooperative learning intervention are often compared to the principles of the group contingency intervention. The focus is on providing learners with the opportunity to cooperate at several levels (Wang, 2012). Thus, students not only interact with each other while completing the assignments, but they also prepare certain tasks and conduct activities while performing a role of a teacher (Kim, Kim, & Svinicki, 2012; Landrum, 2013). As a result, a particular learning community is created in which students are both interdependent and independent because they have the same goal, and they are empowered to choose a way of achieving it. Students will benefit because their motivation to demonstrate good results and support the group members will increase. The implementation of the intervention is based on the group activity that asks students to create the class project. During the students’ work on the project, the teacher plans to use the cooperative learning approaches in order to organize students’ activities and interactions. The intervention will be implemented during an academic year, and it should be divided into three phases, during which students are expected to cooperate with each other to provide a high-quality product. At the first stage, students collect the material for the project, and their interaction becomes grounded on the principles of cooperative learning. During the second stage, the collected material is organized in the prepared project. At the final stage, the project is prepared for completion, and a researcher collects and analyzes the materials regarding possible changes in the students’ motivation to learn and cooperate. The ethical issues that need to be taken into account while implementing the project are the possibility of bias, the increased level of competitiveness and hostility, and the lack of respect in students to each other. The problem is in the fact that effective cooperation is based on mutual understanding among the group members. In this case, it is possible to expect increases in the students’ motivation to demonstrate higher results. Therefore, it is important for the researcher to predict situations when the cooperation can be prevented by the impact of bias and situations when members of the group can be discriminated against. It is important to create an atmosphere of respect in which all students feel comfortable and inspired to participate in the group work. The data will be collected at the end of the first and second phases. The focus is on the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative information will be collected with the help of the test that is aimed at demonstrating changes in the students’ performance. According to these results, it will be possible to conclude about the role of the cooperative learning intervention in improving the students’ motivation and performance. The qualitative data will be gathered with the help of focus group discussions that will be helpful to demonstrate whether students notice c
Energy is an important tool for any nation’s development. It is with this in mind that FEWA, Federal Electricity & Water Authority was established. This paper is basically a report of a trip to the Ras Al Khaimah Plant to acquaint ourselves with the health, safety and environment policies at the site. Several sources are used in this paper to examine the measures put in place to curb disaster and the laws that are set by the government. FEWA was started in 1999 as a body responsible for the generation and distribution of electrify and water in the north of the United Arab Emirates. It operates six power generating plants which it fully owns the water desalination plants; this is from the 2012 report on the Ras Al Kaimah project titled, The Report: Ras Al Kaimah 2012 . Since the energy generation is a dangerous undertaking, it is important to formulate laws and regulations that would govern the process (Al Khaimah 12). This is what prompted the formulation of HSE, Health, Safety and Environment policies, to protect the public, the workers and the environment for the future generations. These policies are executed by the health, safety and environmental systems department of health. Some of the concerns addressed by the specific policy statement being put in place by the government seek to safeguard the health of employees and minimize accidents at the plants. This is done by engaging strategies such as providing the workers with safety equipments that are suitable for the work being done, rewarding and penalizing firms that do not comply to the safety standards, and training the staff on safety precaution measures and disaster mitigation procedures. They have also laid down clear steps to report and investigate any accidents that may occur. Power generating companies are required to ensure that their employees undergo a regular medical check-up to ensure that they are fit to work. The second policy process that has been effective in tackling calamities is the enactment of the emergency and crisis management plans. This has been made possible by having policies such as setting strong measures for evacuation during emergencies, through engaging other stakeholders in the industry. Another effective way has been providing clear visible signboards for evacuation, and conducting evacuation drills during crisis. First aid skills have been identified as a must have for all employees. Employees undergo training on life saving techniques and handling of fire extinguishers in case of fires. There have been endeavors to control risks and reduce their effects on people and their property. This is mainly done by assessing the risk factors in various work stations, carrying out job risk valuations, and having rules to ensure safety is maintained. Conducting the risk assessment once is not enough. There has to be repeated review of the safety standards in all the stations. The fire fighting equipment is tried recurrently and repaired frequently. Preserving the environment is one of the policies that have been fronted by the HSE. This strategy seeks to mitigate the effect of energy p
Introduction Human Resource Management commonly known as HRM entails the use of human beings in a productive manner to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. Human resources management could be defined as a field of management that is concerned with planning, organizing and controlling the workforce in an organization. It involves activities such as procuring, developing and maintaining workforce in an organization. The success of any business is largely dependent on the HRM due to the fact that, HRM affects the customers and the performance of the firm. Successful organizations usually maximizes their human resources through such means as selecting employees with top talent, encouraging employees to raise issues in an open manner, encouraging teamwork, providing employees with guidelines on how to improve on their poor performance etc. Though HRM has acquired some of the attributes of a profession, it has not yet emerged as a fully pledged profession i.e. it has not been able to achieve the global standards. This is because of several factors such as environmental factors, job attitudes, technological innovation etc. and these factors have thus made each country to adapt its own HRM practices (Dyck & Neubert, 2008, 357). The following essay examines the distinguishing features of Human Resource Management in a developing country Ghana. The essay also examines the Human Resource Theories, history of Human Resource Management, function of Human Resource Management, distinguishing features of Human Resource Distinguishing features of Human Resource Management in Ghana The following are the basic characteristics of Human Resource Management which are also evident in the Ghanaian human resources management; HRM supports the business strategy i.e. it helps in establishing the organizational plans, metrics and goals through the HR planning. This is important as it allows the employees to prioritize on those Programmes that are important as far as the organization is concerned. Human resource management is all-incisive i.e. HRM covers and manages all the employees in the organization i.e. it applies to workers, supervisors, managers, top executives, and officers’ etc. Human Resource Management is people oriented for instance, HRM focuses on individual employees and groups within the organization by enhancing human relationships. HRM aims at ensuring that the individuals carries out their tasks in an effective manner so as to realize the organizational goals. HRM e
For a woman, entering the realm of business world is not easy. For the most part, the difficulties concern not the ways in which women prefer to run business, but the way in which women are perceived in the contemporary society, and nowhere is the given issue as obvious as in the UAE. Despite the fact that the problem of female employees and business people facing gender profiling has been addressed several times and a number of measures have been taken, the issue of gender discrimination in business persists, which means that more drastic methods must be designed. In his article Small enterprises: Women entrepreneurs in the UAE , Haan addresses the issues that businesswomen in the UAE face most often. According to what the author says, “support for UAE women entrepreneurs has long been confined to limited assistance for women engaged in traditional, home-based activities” [1]. Therefore, it can be assumed that, by creating several organizations that regulate the relationships among entrepreneurs within the UAE market, businesswomen will be accepted into the UAE business system. However, not only Haan, but also a number of other specialists agree that, with the introduction of such organizations as Center of Arab Women for Training and Research (CATWAR), Gender Entrepreneurship Markets (GEM), Dubai Business Women’s Council (DBWC), and many others, few changes actually happened [2]. It should be kept in mind, though, that Haan’s study was conducted quite a while ago. In a retrospective, a number of things have changed over these ten years, yet the issue concerning women in business remains just as deplorable as it used to be, mostly because the basic initiatives still revolve around introducing agencies that will help regulate the issue within the market. However, certain changes are definitely worth being mentioned. While the issue regarding women in the UAE business still leaves much to be desired, considerable concessions have been made over the past decade. To start with, the formation of the Khalifa Fund can be considered the stepping stone of female empowerment in business in the UAE. In fact, the given organization can be considered by far the most supportive and efficient of all; being one-of-a-kind project, it provides “venture capital, training, development, data and consulting services, and even marketing support” [3], which is very impressive. However, financial assistance does not have a tangible impact on the Emirati society and its concept of women in business: “However, unlike other countries, there is a lack of support targeting female entrepreneurs in UAE” [3]. Another important landmark in the history of women in the UAE business sphere, Masdar Institute has reached considerable results in female empowerment, with “4 ministers in the current go
Introduction The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of group influence on the self by using an experience at the Jewish religious service. Social psychologists have focused on how social influences affect and determine behaviors of others by focusing group conformity and norms (Barnum and Markovsky, 2007; Sloan, Berman, Zeigler-Hill and Bullock, 2009). Individuals tend to conform to behaviors of those around them in a new environment based on the need to act appropriately. This is the accuracy goal. People may also seek to conform to a group based on their affiliation needs to become a part of the group. Self-concept may also drive an individual to seek for conformity for self-enhancement. The experience The experience had a mix of feelings, nervousness, curiosity, excitement, eagerness, and the desire to learn ways of the Jewish religious services. All these are good emotions. The experience was all about seeing new practices and different norms. It is imperative to be fully observant in order to understand the experience of Jewish religious services. However, this experience is not simple to grasp for a new and unfamiliar person because of the desire to learn and identify with the behaviors of the congregation. It was simple to notice that men and women had separate seats to avoid distraction during the service. Men should focus on their prayers rather than on women or girls. It felt strange. It was almost like discriminatory practice against women, especially if one did not understand the reason. A person needs to keep an open mind in such situations because Judaism is different from other Christian practices. Another striking experience is the level of hospitality at the Jewish religious service. The congregation values guests at the service. Although a newcomer would feel shy because of the attention and a service that is unfamiliar, there is a general sense of excitement during the service. There are shared values during the service, which an individual strives to imitate or follow in order to feel as a part of the service or congregation. It leads to a sense of loss of the self and individuality. A person experiences a feeling of anonymity while in a large congregation. The experience leads to the loss of self-awareness and self-restrain as one aims to respond to the immediate activities during the service. The congregation responds to prayers, and all activities that require their attention. For instance, all members stand when the Ark is open as a form of religious honor, and new members follow the group behavior. Preconceived notions about the experience and the effect by the by group influence People have diverse opinions, beliefs, and preconceived notions about groups that fall outside their own groups. Hence, the tendency to discount an outside group is common. A visit to a Jewish religious service provides the normal practical experience of a religious life. However, this is not the case for a newcomer who has a preconceived
The role of an artist has always remained a discussed issue; whether his/her activity was considered prestigious or, backwards, aimed at entertaining the crowd, the personality of an artist has always been perceived as that contrasted with the rest of the society; as that being separated from the concerns of the everyday life and minor, insignificant issues. Not accidentally, the question of an artist’s role has often become an object of attention of artists themselves, in particular, writers: the interaction of an artist and the world around him/her has become a topic for a series of works of literature. In this paper, we will discuss A Hunger Artist (Kafka), the work of Franz Kafka, an outstanding German-language writer, that in an allegoric way depicts the role of an artist during the modernist period. In the image of the protagonist of the story, Kafka depicts a modernist artist, misunderstood, marginalized, “infected” by a specific “melancholy” peculiar to the way modernist artists perceived life and the world around them, as well as observes how an artist interacts with the “addressees” of his/her artistic “message”, which is his/her works. A Hunger Artist tells a reader about a specific genre of “art”, which is “professional fasting”: an artist performed his long-term fasting to numerous observers. Artist’s fasting was his way to express his ideas and share it with the observers (204-205). During a certain period, “professional fasting” was of big popularity awakening strong interest of the society, says Kafka; however, the story describes the period of the decline of the “genre” and its graduate “collapse”. In the course of narration, not only does Kafka depict the act of fasting itself and observers’ reaction on it, but he also throws light upon the artist’s inner experience, which makes the story of particular value for a reader interested in history of art. In the personality of the hunger artist, we may notice the generalized character of a modernist artist, and in the actions of fasting, we may recognize the characteristics of modernism as an epoch in history of art. Let us now discuss the peculiarities of modernism in culture and art to better understand the allegory of Kafka’s work. For the period of modernist culture, it was characteristic for art to be alienated from the everyday life, as well as from the majority of the “ordinary audience”; it is possible to say that the art was created by the “select few” and for the “select few” (Storey 182). This was caused by certain academicism of modernist works of art, by complexity of ideas and the ways of expressing them with the means of art. If we try to create the generalized image of a modernist ar
The basic function of Media is to provide information to the public as well as supply it with entertaining information. Media managers have the responsibility of ensuring the accuracy and fairness of data reported. However, this is not always the case since media reports are often subjective. The dynamic nature of media and the emergence of new sources of information compelled media companies to broadcast and circulate information as soon as possible. As a result, news and articles are subject to the interpretation of journalists and the ideology of media managers. The media, sometimes, reports biased statistical information from social and behavioral research. In 2010, the Daily Mail in its online edition printed research the aim of which was to find out the influence of social media on marriage and divorce. The report states “but now one in five divorces involve the social networking site Facebook, according to a new survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial lawyers” (Gardner). From the foregoing, one gets an impression that Facebook is to be blamed for a large number of divorces. The subjective nature of the report crystallizes when it reports “desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria recently split from her basketball player husband Tony Parker after alleging that he strayed with a woman he kept in touch with on Facebook” (Gardner). Is Facebook responsible for Longoria’s divorce? The answer is certainly no since these are personal differences and family problems that lead to a number of divorces nowadays. Social media hastens the process of divorce as it provides an easy way for people to start relationships. Cox states “in most cases dissolution occurs slowly, and divorce is the culmination of a prolonged period of gradual alienation. In many cases, several years elapse between a couple’s first serious thought of divorce and the decree” (469). Providing information to the public is the basic function of media organizations, however, it is an open secret that they must make a profit for shareholders. Media managers package news to retain clients and increase market share. In the process of editing news, standards get compromised; media organizations prioritize information that generates enthusiasm. Most journalists trade quality for less detailed analysis and content; most consumers prefer clear and easy information. Borden states “unfortunately, the trade-off that takes place in news organizations tends to be tac