ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Freedom to Choose within Limits: Teacher Autonomy from the Perspectives of Basic School Teachers in Ghana
Author: Dampson, Dandy George
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Professional Autonomy,Elementary School Teachers,Teacher Attitudes,Teacher Characteristics,Teacher Empowerment,Creativity,Gender Differences,Age Differences,Teaching Experience,Curriculum Implementation,Foreign Countries

The study examined the level of autonomy among basic school teachers in the Central Region of Ghana and the effect of teacher demographic characteristics on the level of teacher autonomy. The explanatory sequential design was adopted. Using the systematic sampling technique, a total of 315 basic school teachers were sampled for the quantitative phase of the study whilst 12 teachers were sampled for the qualitative phase through the purposive sampling technique. Eighteen (18) Likert-scale items were adapted from Pearson and Hall and used for the quantitative phase. A semi-structured interview guide was designed to collect data to further elaborate on the study's key findings. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data whilst the interview was analysed thematically. The study revealed that teachers in the Central Region of Ghana hold positive perceptions about their autonomy with the level of autonomy being moderate. It further established that teacher autonomy is affected by gender positively whilst age and teaching experience affects their level of autonomy negatively. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the Ghana Education Service (GES) and school heads should organize in-service programmes aimed at informing basic school teachers on the extent of autonomy that they have in the process of implementing the curriculum.
Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Brazil: Towards an Omnilectical Policy Analysis
Author: dos Santos, Monica Pereira
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Inclusion,Students with Disabilities,Public Policy,Educational Policy,Policy Analysis,Epistemology,Special Education,Equal Education,Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Civil Rights

The present paper aims to offer some theoretical insights into the understanding of how the cultures, policies and practices of educational inclusion of disabled people in the Brazilian national context is impacted by national and international policies, but also how far beyond they are affected by other aspects when one takes a broader perspective of analysis, here named as omnilectical. Some international and national policies are taken as starting point to develop the arguments, but the analysis itself shows inevitably that there is far more to be considered. In fact, it is argued that such aspects may be endless, and as such, complex to control. Yet, by adopting an omnilectical view it is believed that control may not always express quality when it comes to carrying out deeper analyses. Perhaps what is needed is some courage to engage in the exercise of breaking through some given-for-granted &quot;traditional&quot; ways of thinking in an attempt to create an epistemology that may open some room for the multidimensional variables at stake in today's realities so that they can be taken into account as part and focus of the analysis.
Phonemic Variations in Similar Words of Turkish and Urdu Language
Author: Khan, Tania Ali
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Phonemes,Phonemics,Contrastive Linguistics,Turkish,Urdu,Language Classification,Foreign Countries,Language Variation,Word Lists,Native Speakers,Audio Equipment,Language Usage,Speech Communication,Measurement Techniques,Vowels

Urdu language is a member of Indo-European family tree and within the zone of Indo-Iranian branch, whereas Turkish language is a member of Altaic family tree. Both of these languages belong to different family trees, but these languages have many words in common. Urdu language has 41 consonant sounds and 11 vowel sounds, whereas Turkish language has 21 consonant sounds and 8 vowel sounds. Both of these languages don't have same number of phonemes. It is interesting to contemplate, how the speakers of both languages produce and perceive these common words in their languages. Therefore, a study is designed to explore the phonemic variations in similar words of Urdu and Turkish languages. In order to find out variations, a list of 75 words, which are common in Urdu and Turkish language was prepared in form of text. The data of this study was collected from Pak-Turk school of Lahore. The prepared words list was given to 10 Turkish speakers. These speakers were selected by using purposive sampling technique. The audios of the speakers were recorded and transcribed into standard Turkish IPA symbols. Levenshtein algorithm framework is used to draw a comparative analysis of Turkish phonemic transcriptions with standard Urdu phonemic transcriptions of the same words. With the help of Levenshtein algorithm, phonemic variations in similar words of both languages was measured. The intriguing result of the study will help in establishing the understanding about the production directions of the similar words used by the speakers of both languages.
Regularities of the English Consonantal Clusters Development
Author: Burka, Nataliia
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Phonemes,Phonology,Syntax,Diachronic Linguistics,Linguistic Borrowing,Speech Communication,Articulation (Speech),Classification,English,Language Research,Old English,Language Variation,Written Language

The paper presents the results of a complex study of ?onsonantal phonemes' syntagmatics, registered at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word throughout the historical development of the English language. The analysis of frequencies of consonantal clusters' actualization allowed the author to characterize the regularities of their occurring within the word structure as well as describe dynamics of their changes during the history of English. The following issues common for different languages are the main aspects for consideration of the problem elaborated in the paper: the emergence of new phonemic sequences (combinability), the occurrence of phonemic changes at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word, the emergence of new phonemes and phonologization processes of the already existing ones, new functional load of phonemes and their ability to combine, the suitability of consonants to join new clusters, the study of the phenomenon of phonemic borrowing, substitution processes, the study of the consonantal clusters' structures as well as frequencies of their occurrence. The research methodology is based on the classification of linguistic features of consonantal clusters as well as envisages their description in correlation with the historical period of the feature manifestation, the position of the cluster in the word, the number of phonemes in a cluster, the ratio of voice and noise, the place and manner of consonant articulation.
Difficulties Encountered by Albanian Students While Pronouncing English Minimal Pairs
Author: Alimemaj, Zamira Metaj
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Pronunciation,Difficulty Level,Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,English (Second Language),Foreign Countries,Oral Language,Phonology,Error Patterns,College Students,Language Teachers,Pronunciation Instruction,Teaching Methods,Teacher Attitudes,Language Tests

Many foreign language learners encounter difficulties in pronouncing English language sounds, which potentially leads to misunderstanding in oral communication. Sometimes, the Albanian learners find pronunciation quite tricky when learning English language because they have to replicate lots of new strange sounds that are completely unknown to them. The present paper tackles the difficulties of producing English sounds with focus on minimal pairs, which is not an easy task, especially when the learners are not exposed to the native speakers in their environment. This research focuses on pronunciation errors with the minimal pairs committed by students of English language who study at the University of Vlora in Albania. As an experienced teacher of English Language in Albania, I have had the opportunity to observe the difficulties the Albanian speaking learners usually face in learning English pronunciation and what I have concluded is that Minimal pairs bear great benefits in pronunciation teaching and learning. There were 20 students who participated in this research and all of them had been studying English Phonology for a semester at the university. We selected six minimal pairs [i] vs. [i:], [e] vs. [ae], [u] vs. [u:], [lambda] vs. [a:], [[Greek small reversed lunate sigma symbol]] vs. [[Greek small reversed lunate sigma symbol]:], [w] vs. [v] and prepared a test for the students. The data were collected and the findings revealed the difficulties the students faced these six minimal pairs.
Reflections of Bilingualism on Preschool Education: An Ethnographic Case Study
Author: Su, Fatma Yalçin
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Bilingualism,Preschool Education,Preschool Teachers,Teacher Attitudes,Content Analysis,Ethnography,Peer Acceptance,Social Status,Foreign Countries,Case Studies,Rural Areas,School Culture,Classroom Environment,Second Language Learning,Native Language,Turkish,Indo European Languages,Teaching Methods,Self Efficacy

This study was conducted with the aim of identifying reflections of bilingualism on preschool education. Ethnographic case study design was adopted in this descriptive research. It was carried out with the participation of eight preschool teachers who were teaching at different village schools and 13 pre-school students in the Southeastern Anatolia during the educational year of 2019-2020. The research data were collected using observation, interview, document analysis and researcher's diary and analysed through content analysis. The research results showed that bilingualism at school, in the classroom and among peers was adopted as a culture. It was seen that bilingualism had negative reflections on the exercise of the preschool educational programme in terms of subjects such as understanding of activities and following of instructions and completing them. It was determined that bilingualism reflected on the teacher as making more effort and feeling incapable in some situations. Bilingualism has been shown to make some students popular among peers.
Identifying Themes in Fiction: A Centroid-Based Lexical Clustering Approach
Author: Omar, Abdulfattah
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Fiction,Novels,Classics (Literature),Literary Devices,Classification,Computation,Models,Semantics,Multivariate Analysis,Literary Criticism

In recent years, numerous computational methods have been developed that have been widely used in humanities and literary studies. In spite of the potential of such methods in providing workable solutions to various inherent problems in research within these domains, including selectivity, objectivity, and replicability, very little empirical work has been done on thematic studies in literature. Such studies are almost entirely undertaken through traditional methods based on individual researchers' reading of texts and intuitive abstraction of generalizations from their reading. This has negative implications in terms of issues of objectivity and replicability. Furthermore, there are challenges in dealing effectively with the hundreds of thousands of new novels that are published every year using traditional methods. In the face of these problems, this study proposes an integrated computational model for the thematic classification of literary texts based on lexical clustering methods. This study is based on a corpus comprising Thomas Hardy's novels and short stories. The study employs computational semantic analysis based on a vector space model (VSM) representation of the lexical content of the texts. The results indicate that the selected texts could be grouped thematically based on their semantic content. Thus, there is now evidence that text clustering approaches, which have long been used in computational theory and data mining applications, can be usefully applied in literary studies.
Reflective Coaching: Training for Development of Instructional Skills and Sense of Efficacy of Pre-Service EFL Teachers
Author: Göker, Mübeher Ürün
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,English (Second Language),Language Teachers,Foreign Countries,Case Studies,Undergraduate Students,Pretests Posttests,Self Efficacy,Preservice Teachers,Coaching (Performance),Reflective Teaching,Teacher Education Programs,Teaching Skills,Classroom Techniques,Student Teacher Attitudes

The goal of this study was to inquire the impact of the reflective coaching (RC) on development of pre-service EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers' sense of efficacy and instructional skills. The reflective coaching program utilized in this study was developed and adapted by the researcher in 2016 mainly based on the theoretical views and principles of reflection, self-analysis of strengths and weaknesses and the writing of personal statements, and reflective teaching. The research approach used for this study was both quantitative and qualitative and this study is a single case study based on pre/post-test design. To achieve this goal, eight volunteer male and female (one male and seven female) undergraduate students, aged from 21 to 22, attending B.A. program in ELT, Faculty of Education, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey participated in the study. For the pre/post-test design of this study, one case study group was formed. The study was conducted between February 11, 2019 and May 17, 2019. During the implementation of the RC program, the researcher also employed an overview of the instructional skills, which represented teaching behaviors desired. Results showed significant differences in favor of the implementation of RC program on development of pre-service EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers' sense of efficacy and instructional skills. The findings are expected to have implications for how reflective coaching can be a means to improve instructional skills and sense of efficacy and recommendations for EFL teachers and curriculum designers will also be made.
College Educated yet Disconnected: Exploring Disconnection from Education and Employment in OECD Countries, with a Comparative Focus on the U.S. PERC Report and ETS Research Report Series No. RR-20-21
Author: Kevelson, Marisol J. C.
Date: 2020-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Education Work Relationship,Learner Engagement,Unemployment,Young Adults,Foreign Countries,Comparative Education,Job Training,Longitudinal Studies,Educational Attainment,Parent Background,Leaves of Absence,Family Work Relationship,Public Policy,Citizen Participation,Higher Education

In this study, we investigated factors predictive of disconnection, or not being in education, employment, or training (NEET), among young adults with at least a 2-year college degree. We also explored the extent to which disconnection influences civic participation and well-being among NEETs with and without college degrees. The authors used 2012 and 2015 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data from the Survey of Adult Skills in the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) for 29 countries, including the United States, along with US 2012 data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Results highlight that college-educated individuals whose parents have low levels of educational attainment actually have a higher likelihood of becoming NEET relative to college-educated individuals whose parents are more highly educated. Study findings also emphasize the influence of economic and geographic differences (country-level for OECD and county-level for United States) on NEET rates, in addition to the extent to which mothers have a higher likelihood and fathers have a lower likelihood of being NEET relative to their childless peers and the influence of country-level family leave policies on the odds of being NEET across the OECD. College field of study also emerges as an important influence on disconnection across the 29 OECD countries in the study, but not in the United States separately. Finally, comparing results for college-educated NEETs and NEETs without degrees, we found that higher education appears to reduce the likelihood of community disengagement and reports of poor health among NEETs across the OECD countries. However, this is not the case within the United States where NEETs are less likely to be engaged in their communities and more likely to describe themselves as in poor health regardless of their educational attainment.
Tracing the Ephemeral: Mapping Young Children&apos;s Running Games
Author: Cowan, Kate
Date: 2020-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Preschool Children,Play,Games,Semiotics,Physical Activities,Video Technology,Transcripts (Written Records),Vignettes,Nonverbal Communication,Early Childhood Education,Documentation

Young children's play is highly multimodal, with gesture, gaze, movement and speech often combined simultaneously in collaborative meaning-making. This article argues for a multimodal social semiotic perspective on play, recognising that this requires representation of data that brings multimodal elements into careful consideration. In this article, multimodal transcription is used to examine a video recording of three and four-year-old children playing a chasing game in an English nursery school. Map-like transcripts, including an animated transcript, are used to document an instance of their play, drawing particular attention to placement in space over time. Whilst such moments of play may at first appear fleeting and chaotic, multimodal transcription reveals the communicative, creative and agentive capacities of young children in a multitude of forms. The transcripts highlight and make evident the ways in which roles and rules of play are carefully negotiated moment-by-moment in multiple modes. In this way, map-like multimodal transcripts are presented as devices to highlight meaning-making where it may not normally be looked for, seen or recognised.
The Analysis of Writing Tasks in High School English Textbooks: A Process-Genre Based Approach
Author: Na, Eon-sung
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Writing Instruction,Literary Genres,Textbooks,Teaching Methods,Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,English (Second Language),Audience Awareness,Context Effect,High School Students,Process Approach (Writing),Prewriting,Scaffolding (Teaching Technique),Editing,Content Analysis,Foreign Countries

The present study examined how writing tasks in high school English textbooks under the revised national curriculum reflected the key writing elements (process, genre, and context) of process-genre based approach. Concerning the latter, the focus was narrowed to audience since it was relatively neglected in writing instruction compared with other contextual factors. For this study, we analyzed 335 writing tasks in ten English textbooks for 1st- and 2nd-year high school students. Results showed that writing tasks largely incorporated the process-genre based approach. However, pre-writing activities mostly scaffolded the organization of ideas, rather than generated them. In the post-writing phase, editing was not targeted in some writing tasks. Both the diversity of genres/subgenres and genre awareness activities were also lacking. In addition, few writing tasks targeted the development of audience awareness through explicit activities. These findings provide pedagogical implications for writing task and curriculum development for material writers, curriculum designers, and practitioners.
Recency preference in ambiguous relative clause attachment in Turkish Preference in Ambiguous Relative Clause Attachment in Turkish
Author: Akal, Taylan
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Turkish,Phrase Structure,Ambiguity (Semantics),Preferences,Native Speakers,Verbs,Language Research,Comparative Analysis,Linguistic Theory,Language Processing,Task Analysis,Structural Analysis (Linguistics)

In Turkish, Relative Clause (RC) attachment ambiguity arises when two noun phrases (NPs) in a genitive construction follow the (RC). The present paper studies Turkish RC attachment preferences of Turkish native speakers in two experiments through off-line comprehension tasks. While in the first experiment the main verb immediately follows the NP group, in the second experiment a group of adjuncts intervened between the second NP and the main verb. The aim of this setting was to observe the effect of Recency and Predicate Proximity in attachment preferences. The results of the first experiment showed a clear preference for low attachment (NP1). This preference was considered to be the result of Recency effect. The outcomes of the second experiment also showed a higher frequency for low attachment preference, but with an increasing rate for high attachment in comparison to the first experiment. This outcome showed first, the effect of Recency was still prevalent, and second, Predicate Proximity along with Relativized Relevance Principle may also have an increasing effect when there is an intervening group of adjuncts between the NP group and the main verb.
A Critical Discourse Analysis of Impact of Code-Switching on Modern Adult Language Learners&apos; Motivation in Pakistan
Author: Sameen, Shafaq
Date: 2021-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Discourse Analysis,Code Switching (Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Anxiety,Learning Motivation,Student Participation,Classroom Communication,Language Usage,College Faculty,College Students,Teaching Methods,Foreign Countries,Females,Single Sex Colleges,Student Attitudes,Teacher Attitudes,English (Second Language),Urdu,Language of Instruction

This research yields a review on demotivation among students due to poor language skills resulting in less participation in classrooms. It provides code-switching, the alternating use of languages in the discourse, as a solution to this problem. It is mixed-method research in which the data was collected from university teachers and students on a survey. The study followed Fairclough's model of Critical Discourse Analysis and helped reach conclusions regarding the use of code-switching in classes. It finds out that our university teachers are already using code-switching in their classes to help reduce foreign language anxiety and motivate learners towards learning. The study also highlighted the possible harm code-switching may bring to the students: students suffer in the long run due to their reliance on the usage of code-switching, and this complete dependency ultimately results in poor language skills development. Thus, the study recommends that teachers be careful and judicious in the use of code-switching in classes and that too only in the initial phase of university education.