VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The craze and crack of content and language integrated learning in Hong Kong: the role of self-regulation in secondary education

The practice of learning content subjects in a second language (L2) has been common around the world, and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), a pedagogical approach developed and coined in Europe, has been effectively employed in Hong Kong. Both product-oriented and process-oriented approaches have shown that CLIL's perceived dual achievement of 'content' and 'language' is underwhelming, and the reasons for this appear to be largely inconclusive. Researchers (e.g. Pun & Macaro, 2019) highlight the emerging need to understand the underlying issues within CLIL-based junior secondary education. However, recently, the importance of self-regulation in CLIL has been emphasised. A study of the role of self-regulation in CLIL can potentially afford researchers and teachers the opportunity to understand how students with different levels of language ability and academic performance prepare, monitor and reflect when learning, but it has not yet been examined in the secondary school context. Therefore, the aim of the study was to explore how junior secondary students from high-tier (Band 1) and mid-tier (Band 2), and low-tier schools (Band 3) in Hong Kong employed self-regulation in their Content and Language Integrated Learning. The study involved 167 participants who were junior secondary students from three secondary schools who were receiving CLIL at the time of research. Quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire and an Academic Vocabulary Test, while qualitative data was collected through a newly developed Scenario-based Assessment and semi-structured interviews. Findings demonstrated a holistic cyclical self-regulatory process of CLIL that fits into Zimmerman’s self-regulation model and found a positive monotonic relationship between students’ self-perceived language challenges and their self-regulatory level. In addition, self-regulation predictors of CLIL outcomes in junior secondary education were also explored and found that CLIL students’ success in L2, academic English and content subject performance increases as their level of self-regulation skills increases and their motivation strengthens. Another notable finding was the non-significant relationship between students’ level of self-regulation and First Language (L1) Chinese proficiency, meaning that this relationship cannot predict the success in L1 proficiency of students with a high level of self-regulation. Such findings highlight the importance of self-regulation in understanding the learning process in CLIL by placing students as the focus of both education and research.

Keywords: self-regulation
English Medium Instruction
Hong Kong
bilingual education
content and language integrated learning
Advisor: Rose, H
Investigating the interplay of grammar, semantics, and word learning in the acquisition of classifier-
noun combination in a second language

When starting to learn the classifier-noun combination in a second language (L2), how do we acquire the grammar, semantics, and words? Some scholars have argued that beginning L2 learners rely on semantics more than grammar, while others have stated that there is no significantly stronger reliance on one rule than another. Meanwhile, some scholars have claimed that L2 learning is ultimately related to the acquisition of individual words rather than grammatical and semantic rules. Since the debate is unsettled, the current study investigated this issue under a classifier-noun compound learning experiment. Specifically, the current design generated two learning conditions, one with the existence of both grammar and semantics and the other with the existence of only semantics. Three post-tests were constructed to test the interplay of grammar, semantics, and word learning in the acquisition of L2 classifier-noun combinations. The sortal classifiers carried the grammatical information which was not available in the generic classifier. The nouns carried the semantic information. Subjects studied the noun phrases either with sortal classifiers and nouns or with generic classifiers and nouns. Their learning outcomes were assessed through three post-tests, including choosing the correct noun phrases with the interferences from different types of distractors and identifying the correct sortal classifiers for different types of noun phrases. The results suggested that the beginning L2 learners did not clearly prefer processing grammar or semantics in word learning. However, when some preference was detected, the beginning L2 learners did not excessively rely on semantics. Moreover, they cannot process the L2 knowledge they have obtained in the same manner as the native speakers. To conclude, this study generally conveys that grammar and semantics, especially grammar, may not be as essential as people assumed in L2 acquisition. It also suggests potential directions for future language learning research in teaching and developing theories.
Metaphysics E1 and the unity of first philosophy

In this thesis I discuss Metaphysics E1 and the problem of the unity of theology and ontology in the Metaphysics. I argue for a unitarian reading of the text, one which largely accepts the transmitted order of the books. I first discuss the programme of E1, which I read in light of a continuously developing project in ΑΒΓΔ. I then discuss Aristotle’s counterfactual argument for a ‘first philosophy’. I discuss Aristotle’s justification for the universality of theology, namely that it is “universal because first” E1 1026a29-32. I take this to mean that its objects, the highest beings and highest causes, are causes of the maximal number of effects – all beings – and thus are causes universally. In this way theology is prior to physics and mathematics as established in E1 1026a8-23. I then discuss various objections to the authenticity of E, or to the programme of identifying theology with the universal science of being, notably the view of Natorp that E was both spurious and interpolated, and the view of Jaeger that the theological and ontological ‘parts’ of the Metaphysics belong to different periods of Aristotle’s life. I then return to the unity of theology and ontology, first discussing and objecting to Frede-Patzig’s solution to the problem through pros hen vocality between god and other substances, then discussing and objecting to Judson’s solution to make theology only a part of first philosophy. Finally, I discuss my solution to the problem taking A2 as a guide, while also differentiating my view from Menn’s, arguing that theology is the ultimate aim of wisdom, and that the ontology of the Metaphysics is preparatory for an ultimate theology, but is nonetheless integral to the investigation. And that if there is a disunity between theology and ontology it is only in name, because it is for the theologian or first philosopher to undertake both investigations.

Keywords: Aristotelianism
theology
metaphysics
Aristotle
natorp
ancient philosophy
Frede
classics
Patzig
ontology
E1
Judson
history of philosophy
Menn
Advisor: Judson, R
Investigating the impact of caste, class, and gender on student attitudes to English in India

Prior research has noted that different social variables can predict the direction and magnitude of language attitudes, across contexts. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have investigated whether one’s position in the the South Asian caste system affects their attitudes towards different languages. To fill this gap, this study uses thematic analysis to explain attitudes towards English in 10 school students aged 13-14 at a public school in Mumbai, India. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews and field notes. The participants were found to come from different castes, each with a history of struggle for power within the caste hierarchy. Results indicate that caste location does significantly influence attitudes towards English; however, this effect is likely mediated by the language ideologies with which the students have been in contact.

Keywords: south asia
linguistic power
caste
language attitude
language ideology
sociolinguistics
Advisor: Rose, H
Education, technology, and the pandemic: perspectives of government teachers from Sanand, India

The purpose of this research is to analyze teacher perspectives on the use of technology in education in under-resourced contexts. Within the digital divide framework, it explores the factors affecting adoption and use of technology in under-resourced schools and communities. Van Dijk proposed some factors in his resource and allocation theory, which I will be examining from an individual and schools lens. It requires a reframing of access from a personal device for each individual to a shared classroom experience. This theory was chosen for its nuanced understanding of questions of access and usage. 9 teachers, who teach in various government schools across Sanand in Gujarat, were interviewed to share their perspectives. The interviews focused on the use of technology during the pandemic and thereafter. All the teachers had teaching experiences in Sanand between 2 and 30 years. They taught various subjects across grades 3 and 8. Following the interviews, analysis was conducted. The first part of analysis was through open coding. This allowed me to let the participant voice be the driving force. The second part of the analysis was done keeping Van Dijk’s theory at the forefront, which was supplemented by teacher perspectives on technology. Patterns emerged during the analysis about factors that affected adoption and use of technology. During the pandemic, online classes were conducted with much difficulty. Once cases decreased, the government decided to allow street education (sehrishikshan). Challenges and barriers to adoption were noted. Once schools resumed, various kinds of technologies were being used within schools collectively. But the distribution of these were skewed between schools and grades. The research ends with four recommendations that will help in implementing the National Education Policy 2020 even in low-resource areas.

Keywords: qualitative research
Towards data-efficient deployment of reinforcement learning systems

A fundamental concern in the deployment of artificial agents in real-life is their capacity to quickly adapt to their surroundings. Traditional reinforcement learning (RL) struggles with this requirement in two ways. Firstly, iterative exploration of unconstrained environment dynamics yields numerous uninformative updates and consequently slow adaptation. Secondly, final policies have no capacity to adapt to future observations and have to either slowly learn indefinitely or retrain entirely as observations occur.
This thesis explores two formulations aimed at addressing these issues. The consideration of entire task distributions in meta-RL evolves policies quickly adapting to specific instances on their own. By forcing agents to specifically request feedback, Active RL enforces selective observations and updates. Both of these formulations reduce to a Bayes-Adaptive setting in which a probabilistic belief over possible environments is maintained. Many existing solutions only provide asymptotic guarantees that are of limited use in practical contexts. We develop a variational approach to approximate belief management and support its validity empirically through a broad range of ablations. We then consider recently successful planning approaches but uncover and discuss obstacles in their application to the discussed settings.
An important factor influencing the data requirements and stability of RL systems is the choice of appropriate hyperparameters. We develop a Bayesian optimisation approach exploiting the iterative structure of training processes whose empiric performance exceeds that of existing baselines.
A final contribution of this thesis concerns increasing the scalability and expressiveness of Gaussian Processes (GPs). While we make no direct use of the presented framework, GPs have been used to model probabilistic beliefs in closely related settings.

Advisor: Osborne, M
Whiteson, S
Comparing the aid diplomacy of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union in Africa, 1959-1971

Against the backdrop of the Sino-Soviet Split, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China began leveraging their disparate resources and expertise to achieve their different aims in Africa, independently adopting distinct approaches to what this thesis calls aid diplomacy. This is defined as the provision of any kind of material, technical, military, or cultural assistance intended to achieve a given diplomatic aim or otherwise further a country’s foreign policy. The thesis compares Chinese and Soviet engagement with Africa during the first full decade of decolonisation, the 1960s. By anchoring that comparison on the two socialist countries’ aid diplomacy, the thesis explores differences in their official ideologies, questions surrounding their competing national interests, disparities in their capacities as foreign policy actors and aid providers, and the divergence in their revolutionary strategies during the 1960s. The thesis will reflect on why scholarship examining the Soviet Union’s actions in Africa focuses on matters of strategy and pragmatism, whereas works which examine the competition of the two powers and on Mao-era China’s efforts in isolation highlight ideology. It further seeks to incorporate the agency and initiative of African political leaders, underscoring how two providers both faced a steep learning curve in the pursuit of their discrete policies in Africa. In so doing, it sheds new light on the Sino-Soviet Split and contributes to scholarship which sidesteps the conventional East-West axis of Cold War history. In addition, the thesis analyses how Chinese and Soviet interpretations of Marxism-Leninism and their respective strategies were experienced on the ground in Africa, opening up another perspective to the field of comparative communism and thus complicating previous narratives about the Soviet Union’s and China’s engagements with Africa and the wider developing world during this foundational era.

Keywords: africa
sino-soviet split
cold war
foreign relations
aid
soviet union
people's republic of china
Advisor: Smith, SA
Studies in the language of the Anglo-Norman translations of the Psalms with particular reference to the Oxford Psalter

Three Latin versions of the Psalms were known during the Middle Ages, the Roman, the Gallican, and the Hebrew. The Roman version was in the past believed to be the version written by St. Jerome as a correction of the 4th century Latin texts, which had become very corrupt textually. But Dom Donatien de Bruyne has now proved that this is not the work of Jerome, because no contemporary sources attribute it to him, no MSS have prefaces by St. Jerome, or mention him as author, and there is no trace of the type of correction which St. Jerome applied to other Biblical texts, It takes into consideration many old Greek readings, leaves faulty translations uncorrected, and contains alterations of the text for the purpose of simplification, and many Low Latin and Vulgar Latin terms.” De Bruyne's theory that parts of the genuine version of St. Jerome are to be found in his letters of 384 & 385 is, however, not entirely accepted. The Gallican version was made by St. Jerome from Origen's corrected version of the Greek Septuagint”, at the request of Pope Damasus in 393 A.D. The Hebrew version, the last translation of St. Jerome, was made from a 4th century Hebrew text, and the rest of the Old Testament in this translation later became the Vulgate text.

Keywords: Douce 320
Bodleian Library
language
manuscript
Anglo-Norman dialect
Oxford Psalter
Psalms
Anglo-Norman translations
Advisor: Reid, TBW
Robson, CA
An edition of The Lady Mother in B.M. Egerton MS. 1994

The lady Mother is the ninth of the fifteen plays in British Museum Egerton MS, 1994, occupying fols. 186-211 of the collection. Except that there is no wrapper, the manuscript appears to be complete. There is no matter preliminary to the text of the play. The title is known from William Blagrave's autograph licence dated 15 October 1635 on fol. 210a.
The text begins at the top of fol, 186a and finishes two-thirds of the way down fol. 210a, Blagrave's licence being written out in the remaining space on this page. On fol. 211a is a half-page of additional dialogue, intended for interpolation at a certain point in the play. The versos of the last two folios are blank. Thus the play itself fills just under forty-nine and a half folio pages.
There are two watermarks:
(i) a ‘pot’ watermark appears on fols. 187, 188, 190 and 192. This resembles, to some extent, Briquet's 12803 (St. Pol, 1586), 12804 (Evreux, 1588) and 12806 (Amiens, 1600), but much more closely Heawood's 3584 (England? 1624), and several figures - fig. 78 in particular – illustrating watermarks found in England in the first half of the seventeenth century, reproduced in his article, ‘Papers used in England after 1600’.
(ii) a ‘crozier' watermark appears on fols. 195, 196, 198, 200, 202, 204, 207, 209 and 211. This slightly resembles Briquet's 1349 (Etobon, 1587), and rather more closely Heawood's 1200 (1626).
Continued in thesis ...

Keywords: British Library
English drama
Henry Glapthorne
seventeenth century
Lady Mother
manuscript
17th century
Egerton 1994
Investigating the relationship between Chinese Students’ IELTS speaking scores and their intercultural communication competence

This thesis focuses on the relationship between International English Language Testing System (IELTS) speaking scores and the intercultural communication competence (ICC) of two groups of Chinese speakers. Chinese international students typically experience difficulty when studying in English-speaking countries, so it is paramount to prepare them adequately with the necessary ICC to succeed abroad. This study started with a literature review providing an overview of ICC and the usefulness of IELTS in preparing students to achieve a high level of competence. The effectiveness of IELTS as a predictor of ICC was examined with a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. For the quantitative analysis, the participants were given a questionnaire that asked them to self-report on the Intercultural Communicative Competence Self-Report Scale. These results were then compared to their IELTS speaking scores. Additionally, participants were invited to participate in an additional interview to obtain qualitative data. These data supported previous findings in highlighting the strong relationship between students’ IELTS speaking scores and ICC, even with regard to measuring speaking skills. The data supported the conclusion that linguistic competence should not be the sole objective of a successful IELTS exam or an efficient intercultural communication exchange. Students should continue to receive further support on their learning journey to enhance their possibilities of developing their ICC and participating in efficient communication exchanges with people from other cultures.

Keywords: Intercultural Communication Competence
IELTS Speaking
The cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky in the Russian literary and philosophical traditions

The central contention of this dissertation is that the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky is informed by ethical, philosophical and aesthetic concerns that have long dominated Russian culture. The starting point is Tarkovsky’s assertion that his art represents ’a continuation of the classic Russian cultural tradition’. The main focus of the dissertation is an examination of a small group of themes in Tarkovsky’s work, and how these relate to specific antecedents in Russian culture; these specific subject areas will be discussed in terms of generic themes and motifs in Tarkovsky’s work, which include: the disruption of harmony in modern life; the despiritualization or spiritual alienation of modern man; the necessity for redemption through self-sacrifice; and the need to relate emotionally to art.
The division of the thesis is thematic, with each of the five main chapters devoted to one subject area. This has not excluded (where appropriate) at least partial consideration of other themes and motifs.
Chapter One is a discussion of Tarkovsky’s aesthetic in terms of the (cinematic) critical method known as "transcendental style’. The aim of the chapter lies in its central contention that Tarkovsky’s form, if it is to be considered against any external, critical framework, can most legitimately be defined in terms of transcendental style’, a method that concedes the dominance of respective cultural traditions to ’transcendental’ directors.
The purpose of Chapter Two is a consideration of Tarkovsky’s films mainly in terms of three distinct aspects of icon painting: contemplation, the concept of transfiguration and tradition. All of these conditions, it is suggested, are germane to Tarkovsky’s aesthetic convictions and to many individual sequences in his films.
Chapter Three is a discussion of the importance of painting to Tarkovsky’s aesthetic, and how far this demonstrates the ’Russianness’ of his sensibility. Chapter Four considers the seminal importance of nature imagery in Tarkovsky, and how representative this is of Russian cosmology, in which nature is accorded a privileged status.
Chapter Five is an appraisal of nature motifs that appear to possess great meaning for Tarkovsky, namely the earth, water, fire, and trees, as well as specific animals and birds.

Keywords: Tarkovsky
motion picture directors
Tarkovskiĭ
Russian
film directors
motion picture producers
film producers
cinema
Soviet Union
A critical edition of the four gospels in the thirteenth-century Old French translation of the Bible

The Gospels from the thirteenth-century Old French translation of the Bible (BXIII) are preserved in manuscripts of BXIII and the so-called "Bible Historiale Complétée" (BHC), comprising the latter part of BXITII and most of the Old Testament books of Guiart des Moulins's "Bible Historiale" (BH). The thesis, on the basis of two select passages from the Gospels and a description of the manuscripts and early editions of BXIII, BH and BHC (given as Appendices I and II), analyses the growth of BHC and the textual relationship of BHC manuscripts to BXIII. The earliest of four redactions found in BXIII and BHC is identified; the Gospels are edited from this redaction (MSS A-D) with the help for removing errors of MSS EF which are copies of one of the other redactions; notes to the text principally indicate possible sources of the Gospel glosses.
BXIII is a translation apparently written for orthodox Catholics. (The Church authorities accept translations as such, but restrict access to theological books in whatever language at times and places of heretical activity.) It can be dated c. 1235-1260, and may have been written by Dominicans in Paris for Dominican nuns or tertiaries. The translation was subsequently used for reading pericopes and, by the fifteenth century at least, for edifying reading in general. Bibliophile interest in the work seems confined to King John II and his descendants. Other known owners include predominantly lesser nobility, with some members of the bourgeoisie in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The work was known in England before the end of the thirteenth century. The thesis contains an indication of the other French Bible translations available in the thirteenth century, and an account of some linguistic questions arising from BXIII and MSS A-F.

Keywords: thirteenth century
Gospels
Old French
critical edition
translation
Bible
13th century
manuscripts
Advisor: Robson, CA