ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Group Dynamics-Oriented Instruction on Developing Iranian EFL Learners&apos; Speaking Ability and Willingness to Communicate
Author: Alikhani, Mohsen
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Group Dynamics,Student Attitudes,Statistical Analysis,Teaching Methods,Questionnaires,Foreign Countries,Group Instruction,Hypothesis Testing,Language Skills,Late Adolescents,Young Adults,Language Tests,Rating Scales,Quasiexperimental Design,Language Proficiency,Pretests Posttests,Randomized Controlled Trials,Comparative Analysis,Factor Analysis

The study investigated how group-dynamics instruction techniques of adaptable nature can be to the benefit of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners so as to develop and improve their willingness-to-communicate and speaking-ability in the long run. After analyzing the data via ANCOVA and EFA, the researcher selected 108 young Iranian male and female EFL learners in a language school in Tehran by means of convenient sampling technique. This investigation shows how EFL learners reacted to Group-Dynamics Oriented Instruction (GDOI). Later, the researchers instructed speaking tasks along with improving the learner's willingness to communicate. TOEFL PBT Test was run among participants for homogeneity purposes, and then the researchers used two parallel speaking section of PET test along with WTC questionnaire before and after the treatment process. The findings of the study bore witness to hypotheses of the study, indicating that GDOI was reliably effective in improving speaking ability and uplifting willingness to communicate. In the same line of analysis, the researcher proved that GDOI has improved EFL learner's willingness to communicate since GDOI provoked and triggered energy, interest, and inclination to partake in discussions in learners. As its effects on speaking ability were concerned, the results were interpreted as showing that GDOI would exert changes to L2 learners' conceptual and psychological predispositions that, in return, would determine the strategies and behaviors the learners employ to address the challenges of L2 learning.
A Functional Study of &quot;zhi [Chinese character omitted]&quot; in the Chinese Nominal Group
Author: Zhang, Weiwei
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Chinese,Semantics,Syntax,Grammar,Contrastive Linguistics,Ideography,Written Language

Over the past decades, subjects concerned with the Chinese character &quot;zhi [Chinese character omitted]&quot;, i.e. grammatical structure, in ancient Chinese language, have been widely explored. This paper conducts a research from a new dimension: the Cardiff Grammar, an integral part of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) which is famous for its &quot;problem-oriented theory&quot;. In order to shed light on the semantics and syntactic functions of &quot;zhi [Chinese character omitted]&quot; in the Chinese nominal group, this study examines five distinctive nominal groups involving &quot;zhi [Chinese character omitted]&quot; with elaborate tree diagrams which are presented in each of the following sections. Through the contrastive study, we find that the Chinese character &quot;zhi [Chinese character omitted]&quot; has some various functions in different situations: as genitive element (g), as modifier trigger (mtr), as selector (v), as qualifier introducer (qint) and as deictic determiner (dd).
The Effect of Implementation of TBLT in Reading Comprehension Classes of Iranian EFL Learners
Author: Madhkhan, Mozhgan
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Program Implementation,Second Language Instruction,English (Second Language),Task Analysis,Reading Comprehension,Instructional Effectiveness,Outcomes of Education,Reading Tests,Pretests Posttests,Experimental Groups,Control Groups,Statistical Analysis,Scores,Reading Achievement,Reading Instruction

The present study investigates the impact of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) on Iranian EFL learners' reading comprehension performance. Seventy participants were assigned randomly to the experimental and control groups. Having instructed the two groups with the same texts but different task types and activities (i.e., tasks in 4 types) during 20 sessions, the learners' reading performance results were compared through utilizing a reading post-test to both groups. The obtained data was analyzed using t-test to examine the effects of independent variable, namely, the method of teaching reading (task-based activities vs. classical reading comprehension) on learners' reading performance as the dependent variable. As well, the performance of the experimental group in four task types was analyzed in order to investigate possible differences among four reading sets of scores obtained on four task types. A follow up TUKEY test was also conducted to locate the exact areas of difference. Results showed that TBLT had a significantly more positive effect on learners' reading performance compared to the traditional reading instruction. Also, the second task type investigated in this study, namely reading, taking notes and discussing, was found to be more effective in increasing learners' reading skill. This study could have pedagogical implications for Iranian teachers and learners, because reading comprehension is a really important part of most instruction and examination systems in Iran.
EFL Learners&apos; Grammatical Awareness through Accumulating Formulaic Sequences of Morphological Structure (-ing)
Author: Kashiwagi, Kazuko
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Junior High School Students,Second Language Learning,English (Second Language),Grammar,Language Patterns,Morphology (Languages),Language Tests,Pretests Posttests,Word Order,Morphemes,Scores,Language Proficiency

Even young EFL learners who have not yet learned L2 grammar will notice language patterns if, when retrieving exemplars (&quot;item-based patterns&quot;), they succeed in making form-meaning connections (FMCs). Item-based patterns, termed formulaic sequences (FS), serve as a basis for creative constructions. Although learners are implicitly sensitive to the frequency of the occurrence of constructions, item-based patterns are largely overlooked and are not retained. Because of the gap between elementary and secondary schools, students believe there is a difference between item-based patterns and the process of learning grammar. This phenomenon extends to EFL. The study investigated the extent to which Japanese students who had completed 150 hours of English lessons (age 13, N = 95) noticed linguistic patterns when using a grammatical judgment test. Targeting the present progressive form -ing as FS, the teacher used three treatments: (a) recall of chunking, (b) structured input and dictogloss, and (c) a ten-minute inductive explication of grammar in L1. The results revealed significant differences between pre- and post-tests for &quot;awkwardness of word order&quot; (31% &lt; 59%) and &quot;omission of morphemes: -ing&quot; (61% &lt; 74%). Overall, students who had received the instructional medium exhibited grammatical sensitivity to FS.
Investigation and Analysis of the Status Quo of the Practical Teaching Ability of English Normal Students in the Higher Vocational College in China
Author: Zhou, Zhen
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Vocational Education,Higher Education,Teaching Skills,English (Second Language),Second Language Instruction,Questionnaires,Student Surveys,Interviews,Likert Scales,Teaching Methods,Student Teaching,Teaching Experience,Change Strategies,Educational Practices,Observation

The teaching ability is the key factor to decide the quality of teaching. How to train and improve the teaching ability of teachers has become a widespread concern of experts and scholars in the field of education and linguistics. The research investigates the status of students' practical teaching ability in the higher vocational college, explores the problems and ways to improve the teaching skills of English normal students and try to provide a scientific basis and theoretical guidance for higher vocational colleges and universities through the questionnaire research of practical teaching ability of students of three vocational colleges in Jiangxi Province, using descriptive statistics.
Technical and Non-Technical Programme Students&apos; Attitudes and Reasons for Plagiarism
Author: Harji, Madhubala Bava
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Student Attitudes,Plagiarism,Ethics,Undergraduate Students,Statistical Analysis,Foreign Countries,Questionnaires

To date, plagiarism continues to be a widespread problem in higher education. Deemed to be endemic, researchers continue to examine various aspects of plagiarism, including students' perception, practices, attitudes and reasons for plagiarism, in addressing this growing concern. Most studies, however, tend to examine these aspects independently. This paper reports on a study that examined both the students' attitudes and reasons for plagiarism, particularly among the Technical and Non-Technical programme students. A questionnaire was administered to 120 students, i.e. 60 each from each programme to gather quantitative data on their attitudes and reasons for plagiarising. The study found that students in both groups hold negative attitudes towards plagiarism. They deem it synonymous to cheating in final examinations and advocate severe penalty to offenders who submit free downloaded or purchased articles. However, they disagree on being penalised for permitting their peers to plagiarise their work. Significant differences were found for the latter two attitudes between the groups. Albeit, disfavouring plagiarism, the two most cited reasons that compel students in both groups to plagiarise are their self-inadequacy in writing skills and poor time management, followed by the temptation and opportunity to plagiarise from the internet and to cope with the institutional load. With an understanding of these variables, all parties will be able to make more informed decisions in addressing this malpractice and upholding academic integrity.
Using Flipped Learning Model in Teaching English Language among Female English Majors in Majmaah University
Author: Abdelshaheed, Bothina S. M.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Blended Learning,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,English (Second Language),Second Language Instruction,Homework,Video Technology,Student Attitudes,Females,Majors (Students),Comparative Analysis,Pretests Posttests,Program Effectiveness,Questionnaires,Student Satisfaction,Scores,Hypothesis Testing,Online Surveys,Statistical Analysis

This study aims at investigating the effect of using Flipped Learning Model in teaching English language among female English majors in Majmaah University on their achievement in two different English courses and identifying their feelings and satisfaction about flipping their classes. The study used a pre-post test design and included two experimental groups (n = 62). A comparison of students' scores in pre and post experimentation were carried to identify the effect of the model and size of improvement in students' achievement. An analysis of students' responses to an online questionnaire was conducted to reveal their feelings towards the flipped model. Results affirmed the hypotheses of the study and there was a significant higher improvement in students' scores in post-tests. Students also favored the flipped learning model and had positive feelings towards it.
Problematization as Activism: Disrupting the Neoliberal Education Project through the &quot;Work of Thought&quot;
Author: Pickup, Austin
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Neoliberalism,Philosophy,Activism,Education,Methods

In this article, Austin Pickup centers Foucault's concept of &quot;problematization&quot; as an important methodological tool for displacing neoliberalism from its stable perch atop a perceived absence of other possibilities. According to Pickup, the genealogical analysis envisaged and practiced by Foucault opens up new avenues by indicating not only that, but also how the present reality is the product of historical contingency rather than logical necessity. After discussing this concept, Pickup highlights Koopman's recent analysis, who argues that the diagnostic work of &quot;problematization&quot; might be usefully paired with the normative reconstructive work central to pragmatism within a larger framework of critical inquiry. Pickup states that applied to the current educational climate, such a project of critical inquiry offers a powerful activist framework for grappling with and reconstructing the present dangers of neoliberal reform.
Removing the Veil: Coates, Neoliberalism, and the Color Line
Author: Humphrey, David
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Neoliberalism,Racial Bias,African Americans,Social Justice,Social Bias,Social Status,Whites,Educational Practices,Power Structure,Social Problems

The words of W. E. B. Du Bois, in his widely-acclaimed work&quot; The Souls of Black Folk,&quot; that &quot;the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line&quot; were a visceral attempt to illuminate the plight of the &quot;Negro&quot; in the United States of America. With this phrase, Du Bois positioned racial valorizations as the &quot;modus operandi&quot; of American society at the turn of the 20th century, with Black and Brown bodies bearing the brunt of societal dehumanization, bigotry, and hyper-visibility; as he claimed, it was as if the Black race were born some sort of &quot;seventh son.&quot; Du Bois brought race center stage as the dominant issue of his day, contending that the uplifting of Black bodies is paramount to the advancement of all society. In this regard, he reveals the connectedness of the Negro Problem and the human condition. To Du Bois, resolving the Negro Problem is prerequisite to being a humane and just society. The focus of this paper is Ta-Nehisi Coates's &quot;Between the World and Me&quot; as an extension of the Du Boisian tradition of Black illumination. Coates's narrative, like that of Du Bois, compels the reimagination of the oppression and mythologization of the Black experience. The author will argue that through his articulation of the Dreamer, as a representation and metaphor for White privileged status, Coates avails himself of Du Bois's philosophical analysis regarding the hyper-invisibility of Whiteness. Situated in this Black activist and intellectual tradition, Coates operationalizes White invisibility to expose its false yet covert maintaining of Whiteness as a way of life.
Gender Bias within the Superintendency: A Comparative Study
Author: Bernal, Carolyn
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Gender Bias,Women Administrators,Superintendents,Barriers,Administrator Role,Leadership Qualities,Mixed Methods Research,Semi Structured Interviews,Surveys,Administrator Attitudes,Incidence,Child Rearing,Comparative Analysis,Interpersonal Communication,Language Usage,Interpersonal Relationship,Goal Orientation

Current research reveals a large percentage of teaching positions and administrative services credentials are held by women, although historically, men dominate the superintendent role. Specifically in the area of women in the superintendency, a discrepancy exists between men and women in recruitment practices, types of barriers and challenges, and the length of time one stays in the superintendent position. This study examines the superintendent role and the perceived leadership qualities necessary, barriers, challenges and opportunities, as well as the career pathway taken by those in the superintendent role. With a mixed-method design, the study reflects upon responses from six superintendents, three women and three men, using semi-structured interview questions and data collected with Bolman and Deal's (1990) Leadership Orientations (Self) Instrument and a demographics survey. A theoretical framework of management and leadership styles was utilized to analyze the data for themes relating to the three research questions. The findings generally indicated women superintendents perceive they are expected to act and behave differently to succeed in the role, while men are more at ease with making decisions and leading others. Gender biases were found to be prevalent for women, as the role of parenthood was the biggest barrier when considering their career pathway. This was not found to be a barrier for men.
Managing the Ebb and Flow: A Case for Calling Forth Student Voice
Author: Damiani, Jonathan
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Case Studies,Suburban Schools,Elementary Schools,Student Empowerment,Student Participation,Leadership Styles,Observation,Interviews,Principals,Administrator Attitudes,Student Attitudes,Focus Groups,Instructional Leadership

This case study explored how a principal in a suburban elementary school in the northeastern United States empowered students and used student voice to develop his own leadership. The researchers collected and analyzed data in the form of observations, principal interviews, and student focus groups. Results and discussion describe and explain how the principal engaged with students' perspectives to structure his experiences of school and learning. Also, results indicate that the principal's self-awareness of his instructional leadership actions, particularly regarding the inclusion of student voice and agency, is critical for effective and meaningful leadership. This case provides a new direction for developing and practicing school leaders to consider self-evaluation and reflection as part of ongoing leadership improvement, framed by the research-based concepts of instructional leadership, student voice, and perceptual congruence. Finally, the case study provides an opportunity for the field of educational research to open meaningful and often-overlooked discussions emphasizing the value of including students in models of shared instructional leadership and empowering youth as learners and leaders in their own right.
Baudrillard and Rethinking the Modern Western-Civ Course: the Epistemology of War in an Era of New Media, Neoliberalism, and Virtual Warfare
Author: Bulfin, Michael
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Higher Education,Liberal Arts,Western Civilization,History Instruction,Conflict,Violence,War,Terrorism,Military Service,Neoliberalism,Simulated Environment,Teaching Methods,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education

A university commitment to the liberal arts can take many forms, but more often than not it attempts to ensure that all students, regardless of direction or professed major, become educated in some form about the defining events of Western Civilization. There are many specialized History and Global Studies courses that educate students about countless aspects of the human experience, past and present. In the broader survey-style Western Civilization (Civ) courses that attempt to cover the breadth of history of the modern West, wars tend to be central, though not exclusive, loci in understanding major turning points in the contemporary human experience. This traditionally has been done with good reason; the history of violent human conflict between nation-states has produced winners and losers with enormous outcomes for multitudinous actors. There are also increasing bodies of academic literature dedicated to conflict by and between non-state actors in the more distant past as well as the temporally closer post-Cold War global order. While recognizing that historical cause and effect is subjective and multifaceted, the pedagogy of war is nonetheless critically important to understanding the ideas people fought and died for that have brought us to the world we inhabit today. Michael Bulfin notes in this article that he has become increasingly convinced that the way war is conceptualized and taught to students is becoming incompatible with &quot;war&quot; for our current screenified post-9/11 generation. This article theorizes that the education students receive in human conflict past has gradually become discordant with how they conceptualize human conflict in the present. Bulfin first argues that American military objectives in the 21st century are reflective of 21st century neoliberal capital. He then uses Jean Baudrillard's arguments (&quot;The End of the Millennium or the Countdown,&quot; &quot;Theory, Culture, &amp; Society&quot; 15, no. 1 (1998): 3.) on why the First Persian Gulf War was anything but a classical &quot;war&quot;. Bulfin analyzes when the simulation of overwhelming military superiority became more powerful than physical military superiority itself, then takes up the idea of virtualized war to explain how new media's ability to simulate overwhelming military superiority ends up changing the way we prepare, conduct, and even understand warfare in the classroom and in a broader societal context.
Steering the Ship: Principles of Student Success for Organizational for Change
Author: Mitchler, Jenna
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Organizational Change,Focus Groups,Self Efficacy,Qualitative Research,Grounded Theory,Constructivism (Learning),Nontraditional Education,Secondary School Teachers,Administrators,Teacher Administrator Relationship

Researchers often use focus groups to collect data for qualitative research, but focus groups can also be used by organizational leaders to articulate participants' values or principles--principles that can be used to guide organizational change. This paper examines one staff's mobilization of a focus group to collect data for a research study they were conducting together to articulate programmatic principles. The collaborative nature of the group-work engaged and guided the participants in the generation of principles that were then used to guide program-wide development. Furthermore, the collaborative nature of the group encouraged engagement in the research from a partial participant and generated data that was used for triangulation in the grounded theory research being conducted. The principles indeed guided the educators in their research and in changing their school and impacted both their self and collective efficacy.
Promising Practices: Building the Next Generation of School Leaders
Author: Bryant, Jennifer Edic
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Transformational Leadership,Leadership Training,Teacher Leadership,Principals,Capacity Building,Teacher Promotion,Qualitative Research,Case Studies

This study applies transformational leadership theory practices to examine the purposeful ways in which principals work to build the next generation of teacher leaders in response to the shortage of K-12 principals. Given the impact principals have on student development and the shortage of those applying for the principalship, the purpose of this cross-case analysis was to discover how principals build leadership capacity at their respective school sites and groom individuals for leadership roles. Further, this study explored teacher perceptions of the practices in addition to factors that facilitated or inhibited the implementation of the principals' practices. Three school principals served as the primary participants for this research, and data were gleaned from interviews, observations, and artifacts. Findings indicated that the principals fostered leadership capacity by providing authentic administrative opportunities for teachers pursuing the administration credential. Additionally, the principals' methods for building leadership capacity were positively perceived by the identified teacher leaders. Factors that facilitated leadership capacity development include school and district systems and structures, while factors that inhibited teachers' development include psychological concerns. This study illuminates the need for principals to build leadership capacity at their school sites in order to purposefully prepare teacher leaders for principal succession.