Inadequate Language Skills Research Articles

Using Interdisciplinary Approach in Business English Courses for China's English Majors

ABSTRACTThis study reports an empirical case study about using interdisciplinary approach in business English courses with 41 English majors in the Chinese university context. The methodologies are two‐stage surveys, teacher reflection and participant observation. The results show that participants most preferred using specialist vocabulary and cross‐cultural business communication as learning activities in using interdisciplinary approach. The challenges and difficulties in interdisciplinary learning included lack of professional vocabulary, business or interdisciplinary knowledge, business thinking skills and inadequate language skills. A majority of the participants perceived the interdisciplinary approach as effective, as they had improvements in business language, knowledge, communication and English ability. For improving and refining the interdisciplinary approach, participants suggested more practical and detailed business knowledge, practice‐based activities, oral simulation and role‐play activities, more detailed guidance and feedback in the writing tasks, more business cases with interesting videos, increasing Chinese native language explanation and producing a business English language corpus.

Tantangan dan Solusi Penggunaan Bahasa Indonesia Yang Efektif Dalam Diskusi Akademik Untuk Meningkatkankan Kemampuan Berbahasa Mahasiswa Milenial

This study aims to identify challenges and solutions to the use of effective Indonesian in academic discussions on campus, as well as its implications for improving the language skills of millennial students. The use of effective Indonesian in academic discussions on campus is important for millennial students. However, there are challenges faced in practice, such as inadequate language skills, the influence of trends in the use of foreign languages, and a less supportive campus environment. This study aims to identify challenges and solutions in the effective use of Indonesian in academic discussions on campus. The results show that the main challenges faced are internal factors, such as the lack of Indonesian language skills, as well as external factors, such as the campus environment that tends to encourage the use of foreign languages.

Exploring high-technology augmentative and alternative communication interfaces: the effect of age and technology experience

Purpose Many people with aphasia have inadequate language skills for functional communication thereby necessitating well-designed augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interfaces. Using both a grid and a VSD interface with single word hotspots by neurologically healthy adults, across ages and with different technology experiences, this study examines the utility of these interfaces prior to investigating their use with people with aphasia in future studies. Method Participants include 18 young adults, 24 older adults with technology experience, and 20 older adults with limited technology experience. The older adult groups were matched for mean age and for sex. Participants described pictures with each interface, and performance was measured based on four dependent variables: (a) the total number of correct information units (CIUs), (b) the percentage of CIUs, (c) CIUs per minute, and (d) preferred interface. Results There was a significant difference between older adults and the young adult group for the total number of CIUs (p < 0.001) and CIUs per minute (p < 0.001). Despite the changes in technology experience between the two older groups, there was no significant difference in performance. Additionally, there was no significant difference in performance across the two interfaces in any of the groups. Conclusion Findings suggest age does impact performance on AAC. However, the difference in technology experience in older adult groups did not affect performance. Furthermore, both interfaces used in the current study were equally beneficial when describing pictures by healthy adults. Implications for Rehabilitation Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems involve various interface designs. Consequently, the comparative utility of these interfaces must be examined across populations and communicative functions. Advancement in technology has given rise to numerous high-tech AAC interface designs. However, older adults with acquired language difficulties whose technology experience is limited may become reluctant to use high-tech AAC. Hence, the influence of technology experience on high-tech AAC performance should be investigated. Prior to examining interfaces with individuals with acquired language difficulties, the current study examined the use of a) grid display and b) visual scene display (VSD) with single word hotspots, by healthy adults of different ages and technology experiences. The study revealed that older adults with limited technology experience were equally competent in using high-tech AAC interfaces, as those with technology experience. Hence, an individual’s technology experience should not be considered a deterrent to using high-tech AAC interfaces. Additionally, the study found no differences in performance between the two interfaces, making it essential to consider user's personal preference when adopting AAC interface designs.

Students’ Perceptions of L1 Use in Online EFL Classes－A Case Study of Beginner-Level Korean College Students

The purpose of this case study is to investigate Korean college students’ perceptions about the use of L1 in a general English class conducted entirely online amid the COVID-19 pandemic situation. More specifically, the current study aims to better understand the perceptions students held about the language choices made by the instructor, including the advantages and/or disadvantages of using L1, as well as their perceptions on how the use of L1 should be implemented in the online EFL class. The language choices engineered by the instructor for this class were designated into three forms; English and Korean pre-recorded video lectures, English-only Zoom classes, and Korean-only feedback via Zoom and email. The main source of data was a survey questionnaire consisting of multiple choice questions, the Likert-scale, and open-ended questions. A total of 69 mostly first-year college students taking the course during the fall semester of 2021 responded. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze responses to the multiple-choice questions and the Likert scale ratings. Responses to open-ended questions were analyzed using the content analysis method. Analysis of data showed that students hold a prevailingly positive view of L1 inclusion in the online English classroom for academic, managerial, and affective purposes. Students believed that the use of Korean was especially helpful for managerial and academic purposes, for it assisted them in developing a strong understanding of the content delivered and in following the flow of the online lectures. Students also showed a strong desire to include Korean for affective purposes, such as to help ease anxiety and to help them cope with low confidence due to their feelings of possessing inadequate language skills to clearly articulate themselves in English. In regard to the social benefits of L1, students also viewed this positively. However, views were not as high as shown in the other cases of the benefits they perceived, likely due to the complexity of online social interactions. To the question about what languages should be utilized as mediums of instruction in the online English class, the students commonly agreed that English should be the primary language, but that L1 should be allowed to be used to some extent. Their reasons for needing L1 particularly in the online English learning environment were also discussed, some of which were the lack of nonverbal cues to understand the instructor’s lectures and the absence of immediate help when faced with difficulties. The results of this study indicate that L1 certainly holds a positive role in the minds of beginner-level EFL students. The findings also suggest that inclusion of L1, when used prudently, can act as a valuable scaffolding tool to help beginner-level students achieve the goals of the class in an online setting.

Euroregions and Local and Regional Development—Local Perceptions of Cross-Border Cooperation and Euroregions Based on the Euroregion Beskydy

The cross-border regions, which are the peripheral regions, are struggling with m troubles. They often include high unemployment, insufficiently developed infrastructure, or inadequate language skills of residents, which are barriers to exploiting the potential of such regions. One kind of remedy is the assumption of the European Union’s regional policy, under which Euroregions are created. These units, constituting a form of cooperation between the regions of the European Union member states, candidate countries, and the regions of their neighbors, with the support of local and regional authorities, constitute support for the competitiveness and development of border areas. The purpose of this study is to verify how people perceive the activity and effectiveness of Euroregions, as well as to try to determine whether they think Euroregions contribute to local and regional development. In this research, an online and self-administered survey was used, with two parts: one related to Euroregions in general, and the other to a specific, selected Euroregion. Despite the fact that the Polish experience has not been as long as in other parts of Europe, the results show that the Euroregions are positively evaluated by people, and they rate them as important for development of the regions.

Immigrant parents' experiences of communicating with healthcare professionals at the neonatal unit: An interview study

BackgroundWhen newborn children of immigrants require care in a neonatal unit, parents frequently encounter not only a new language, but also a new healthcare organisation. AimTo examine parents’ experiences of communication with healthcare professionals in a neonatal unit when language barriers are present. MethodTwenty interviews were conducted with families who spoke Arabic and had a child who had been cared for at one of five neonatal care units, level II-III in western Sweden. The interviews were analysed using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach. ResultsThe main theme, having the opportunity to exercise one's parental role, included four themes encountering emotional warmth, feeling accepted, encountering a lack of understanding, and compensating for inadequate language skills. ConclusionIt is not only language barriers that affect communication between parents and healthcare professionals; different expectations and pre-understandings are also of importance.

Language Skills and Level of Experience among Arabic-Speaking Healthcare Interpreters in Denmark; an Explorative Study

Background: Denmark has become a multicultural society over the past three decades, with 12.8% of the population being immigrants and their descendants. Many of these risk inequality in access to health and in health outcomes because of language barriers. The quality of healthcare interpreting services has recently been discussed by politicians and the media. The present explorative study investigated the sociodemographic characteristics, level of experience and linguistic skills of Arabic-speaking healthcare interpreters in Denmark. Method: Snowball sampling (including social media) was used to recruit interpreters. Data were collected through individual telephone interviews based on an interview guide containing structured and semi-structured questions. Interpreters’ language skills were assessed subjectively based on the flow of the interview and preferred interview language. Results: Of the 232 professional Arabic-speaking healthcare interpreters interviewed 21% were assessed as having adequate skills in both Danish and Arabic, 40% we assessed as having inadequate skills in both languages. Only 6% of interpreters born in Denmark had adequate language skills in both languages. Conclusion: A large proportion of Arabic-speaking healthcare interpreters appear to have inadequate language skills in Danish or Arabic or both. Interpreters born in Denmark do not appear to have better skills than those born elsewhere. There is an urgent need to screen interpreters to identify those who are unfit for healthcare interpretation. Those eligible should receive additional training, including technical language skills. All interpreters should be required to undergo testing of their linguistic skills to work professionally as healthcare interpreters.

Lockwood Kipling's Role and the Establishment of the Mayo School of Art (1875–1898)

AbstractThis article sets out to delineate the process that led to the establishment of Mayo School of Arts in Lahore in 1875. It lays down the context within which the plan to set up art institutions in India was conceived. Contrary to Krishnan Kumar's view whereby the coloniser and the colonised constituted an adult-child relationship the coloniser, in that particular relationship took the role of the adult whereas the native became the child which had been a salient feature of the educational and academic landscape of British India. By challenging Krishna Kumar, this article while drawing on the inferences of Partha Mitter and Hussain Ahmad Khan, argues that in the realm of art instruction the analysis of colonial strategies of adjustment and readjustment provide useful insights about the administrative constraints and cognitive failures of the colonial administrators in the nineteenth-Century Punjab. Challenges like space-selection for MSA campus, appropriate Curriculum for the students and their inadequate language skills stared its founder Principal Lockwood Kipling (1837–19011) in the face. This forms the major focus of the article.

Enhancing Communication Practices in Virtual New Product Development Projects

Virtual new product development (NPD) teams integrated via information and communication technology (ICT), can offer effective solutions to higher quality, service, customer responsiveness and individualized productization. Experts in NPD teams usually collaborate across the globe and across time zones by e-mail, tele- and web-conferencing, as well as other ICT, sometimes with inadequate language skills and with various ways of communicating and sharing information. Therefore, finding a shared understanding, relevant information, common language, and personal contacts across different sites may be challenging. The aim of this research was to study how communication practices are organized in virtual NPD. In addition to this, the scope was to study what kinds of competences are needed to enhance the efficiency of virtual communication in cross-cultural NPD. The authors conducted a multi-method case study of a global telecommunication company. The main findings were that members in virtual projects have different kinds of communication practices based on personal competences, habits, and preferences rather than company-level recommendations. The main contribution of this study is that virtual collaboration competences on a personal and organizational level play a significant role in enhancing efficiency in communication and when designing and utilizing communication practices. The authors' results may be used to support managerial decisions concerning practices of organizing global teams and when coordinating communication practices in complex global projects.

Managing barriers of virtual communication in global new product development projects

In virtual operating environments for new product development NPD increase the need to manage communication efficiently. The goal of communication is to reach a shared understanding; however, this is often challenging due to barriers that harm the communication process. Communication barriers typically cause misunderstandings and conflicts and hinder access to relevant information, causing delays in projects and some even fail in reaching their strategic or operational objectives. In addition to identifying the barriers, the main aim of the study was to discover ways of overcoming these barriers. We conducted a multi-method case study in a global telecommunications company. The theoretical base was built on virtual team literature and the theory of communication in virtual NPD teams' context. The key finding of this study is that main barriers to communication are egocentrism, information-sharing behaviour, inadequate language skills, mistrust, communication distortions and miscommunication. In addition, we identify specific managerial implications for organising communications in virtual projects.

Foreign doctors in Norwegian psychiatry – is there a need for a mentoring scheme?

In line with other Western countries, the number of foreign doctors in Norway has greatly increased in recent years. Inadequate language skills and cultural differences may give rise to challenges. The objective of this study was to investigate the views of Norwegian specialty registrars in psychiatry with regard to a mentoring scheme for foreign doctors and how such a support scheme ought to be designed. Data were collected in focus-group interviews with specialty registrars in psychiatry. Altogether 24 Norwegian and 16 foreign doctors participated in a total of five focus groups. Thematic analysis was used as methodology. One consistent finding pertained to the differing views on the need for a mentoring scheme among the Norwegian and foreign doctors respectively. The foreign doctors perceived few problems in terms of language and culture, while their Norwegian colleagues had occasionally experienced considerable problems in this respect. Moreover, obstacles in terms of attitude to a mentoring scheme were revealed among the foreign doctors, as well as differing opinions regarding the organisation of such a scheme, especially in terms of its voluntariness and having peers as mentors (horizontal organisation) versus having superiors as mentors (vertical organisation). The differences in attitude to a mentoring scheme are partly caused by perception of the problem's extent and partly by varying norms and values among foreign and Norwegian doctors respectively. We propose that various forms of mentoring scheme be tested in a pilot project, in which the foreign doctors are actively involved.

Employers have a duty to ensure linguistic competence.

NHS employers who identify European nurses with inadequate language skills are responsible for helping them improve their English, according to new guidance.

Impact of Patient Language Proficiency and Interpreter Service Use on the Quality of Psychiatric Care: A Systematic Review

This literature review examined the effects of patients' limited English proficiency and use of professional and ad hoc interpreters on the quality of psychiatric care. PubMed, PsycINFO, and CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) were systematically searched for English-language publications from inception of each database to April 2009. Reference lists were reviewed, and expert sources were consulted. Among the 321 articles identified, 26 met inclusion criteria: peer-reviewed articles reporting primary data on clinical care for psychiatric disorders among patients with limited proficiency in English or in the provider's language. Evaluation in a patient's nonprimary language can lead to incomplete or distorted mental status assessment. Although both untrained and trained interpreters may make errors, untrained interpreters' errors may have greater clinical impact, compromising diagnostic accuracy and clinicians' detection of disordered thought or delusional content. Use of professional interpreters may improve disclosure in patient-provider communications, referral to specialty care, and patient satisfaction. Little systematic research has addressed the impact of language proficiency or interpreter use on the quality of psychiatric care in contemporary U.S. settings. Findings are insufficient to inform evidence-based guidelines for improving quality of care among patients with limited English proficiency. Clinicians should be aware of the ways in which quality of care can be compromised when they evaluate patients in a nonprimary language or use an interpreter. Given U.S. demographic trends, future research should help guide practice and policy by addressing deficits in the evidence base.

Mobile vulnerabilities: perspectives on the vulnerabilities of immigrants in the Finnish labour market

AbstractIn this article, the types of vulnerability faced by immigrants in the Finnish labour market are investigated in relation to differences in their ethnic origin. Labour‐market performance of immigrants is analysed by local labour‐market area. The most successful immigrants are so‐called Westerners. By contrast immigrants from the developing world face severe problems, especially the fundamental one of getting started in the labour market. High unemployment levels in Finland, the low esteem attributed to foreign work experience by Finnish employers, and inadequate language skills are the main barriers encountered by labour‐market entrants from abroad. There are more jobs for migrants in the major southern cities than in the smaller centres of other regions. Those who are unemployed during the first year after immigration are likely to continue to face problems thereafter. Only a fifth of unemployed immigrants succeeded in finding a job in their first year after arrival year. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Podkolzina v. Latvia. App. No. 46726/99

Podkolzinav. Latvia. App. No. 46726/99. At &lt;http://www.echr.coe.int/Eng/Judgments.htm&gt;. European Court of Human Rights, April 9, 2002.In Podkolzina v. Latvia, the European Court of Human Rights held that Latvia violated the applicant's right to stand as a candidate for parliamentary elections, as set out in Article 3 of Protocol No. I to the European Convention on Human Rights in striking the applicant off the list of registered candidates due to allegedly inadequate language skills. The Court ordered Latvia to pay 9,000 for nonpecuniary damages and for costs and expenses.The applicant, a member of the Russian-speaking minority in Latvia, acquired an official language certificate in January 1997. The certificate was issued by a regional board of the State Language Centre, composed of five examiners. On the basis of written and oral examinations that were evaluated in accordance with criteria and levels of competence defined by legal regulations, the five-member board certified that Podkolzina's command of the Latvian language corresponded to the “third level.”

Review of Affect regulation and the development of psychopathology.

SUSAN J. BRADLEY Affect Regulation and the Development of Psychopathology New York: The Guilford Press, 2000, xii + 324 pages (ISBN 1-57230-548-7, us$40, Hardcover) Reviewed by LINDA M. MCMULLEN In her acknowledgements, Susan Bradley describes the spirit in which she presents her ideas as the offering of a gift. As with most acts of gift-giving, her gift reflects both the needs of the giver and the perceived wants of the receiver, and her act of giving embodies a mixture of careful consideration, commitment, enthusiasm, and caution. The extent to which this gift will be used, however, remains an uncertainty. Bradley offers an integrated theory of psychopathology built around the core notion of affect regulation. In her model, psychopathology develops as a consequence of a dynamic interplay between a vulnerable stress-reactive individual and a care-taking environment that is insufficiently attentive to the needs of this individual. This vulnerability to stress can result from a variety of genetic or constitutional factors (e.g., temperamental predispositions), biological factors (e.g., levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, deficits in the development or functions of specific regions of or connections in the brain), life events (e.g., trauma, maltreatment or abuse), patterns of learning and coping (e.g., inadequate language skills, few opportunities to learn from peers, ineffective coping strategies), and care-taking environments (e.g., unresponsive, highly emotionally expressive, conflict-ridden). Repeated interactions between a stress-reactive individual and an inappropriately sensitive environment are thought to lead to high levels of arousal in the individual which, in turn, result in ineffective coping strategies, less than optimal interactions with significant others, and potential changes in neurobiology. Although Bradley views the developmental failure to learn adaptive affect regulation as central to all forms of psychopathology, she cites certain factors as more likely involved in the development of specific classes of psychopathology. In the case of the internalizing disorders (e.g., anxiety and mood disorders), factors such as neuroticism, inhibition, and maternal depression, for example, are thought to be importantly involved, while in the externalizing disorders (e.g., the disruptive disorders), a propensity to aggressive responding to frustration, a hostile and critical care-taking environment, parental criminal history, and peer rejection (among other factors) are thought to be more salient. Evidence for distinguishing factors in the development of the psychotic disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) is less compelling, but early adversities and acute stress reactivity, particularly to negative emotions, are speculated to play a role in addition to other genetic/constitutional, psychosocial, and neurobiological factors that are common to other classes of psychopathology. Bradley's deep attachment to the notion of affect regulation as the core of all psychopathologies is clear throughout the book. She cites hundreds of studies from literatures on attachment, temperamental traits, physiological and psychological effects of stress, dysfunctional parenting, cognitive schemas, obstetrical complications, adverse life experiences, neurotransmitters, and psychotherapy (among other topics), all of which are presented as supporting her thesis. Although her description of these studies is a bit dry and decidedly uncritical, she nevertheless presents a convincing case. Deep attachment to her thesis is also refreshingly tempered from time to time, both with a recognition of the numerous possible combinations of the factors she is considering and the multiple possible effects of them on an individual, and with an admission that her model is still developing, that it will undoubtedly be revised and extended when new information becomes available on how the factors she cites contribute to the development of certain disorders, and that it will benefit from the reactions of her readers. …