Learners Face Research Articles

Teachers’ Understanding of the Link between the Atomic Theory and the Mole Concept

The mole concept is one of the fundamental concepts in chemistry. However, a number of studies carried out in various countries have shown that teachers and learners face many difficulties in teaching and learning the concept. One of the underlying sources of teaching and learning difficulties of the mole concept identified in literature is the gap in understanding the link between atomic theory and the mole concept. Therefore, the focus of this study was to assess teachers’ conceptual understanding of the link between the atomic theory and the mole concept in selected secondary schools in Kitwe District in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. The study was conducted in six secondary schools with a study sample of 30 chemistry teachers. Data were collected using the following multiple data collection strategies: questionnaire, lesson observations and focus group interviews. The study found that teachers understood how the atomic theory links to the mole concept in terms of the number (N) of atoms or formula units. They understood that a mole is equal to atoms or formula units. However, their conceptual understanding of the link between relative atomic/formula mass and molar mass as the second linking idea between atomic theory and the mole concept was inadequate, because they did not fully understand relative atomic/formula unit mass and molar mass. The study recommended that professional development initiatives need to be organised with a focus on the updated definition of the mole and the key role of the unified atomic mass unit as the mass scale for microscopic entities in the understanding of the link between relative atomic/formula mass and molar mass. This is key for the conceptual understanding of the mole concept.

Multimedia English teaching analysis based on deep learning speech enhancement algorithm and robust expression positioning

In multimedia English teaching, learners face such an indifferent computer screen without emotion and feel the fun of interaction and emotional stimulation, which will cause resentment and affect the learner’s learning effect. In order to improve the efficiency of multimedia English teaching, aiming at the lack of emotion in multimedia English education, this study proposes an intelligent network teaching system model based on deep learning speech enhancement and facial expression recognition. Moreover, this study uses emotional calculation as the theoretical basis and uses facial expression recognition as the core technology to judge and understand the emotional state by capturing and recognizing the facial expressions of online learners. In addition, this study has carried out experimental tests on the effect of the identification method of this paper and verified that the method has good detection effect on the real smile micro-expressions through two sets of experiments and can provide theoretical reference for subsequent related research.

INVESTIGATING CHALLENGES FOR LEARNING ENGLISH THROUGH SONGS

<p>Teachers teaching in the 21<sup>st</sup> century find classroom teaching and learning more challenging than it used to me. Generation Y are known to have problems with communication and generation Z are known to prefer learning tasks that contain the use of technology and activities that include the elements of fun. The use of songs has been successfully used in the teaching of English as a second/foreign language. Songs are known to motivate learners in the classroom. However, some language teachers report facing problems when they use English songs as teaching materials. This pilot study explores the challenges teachers face when they use of English songs in the English classrooms. Respondents were chosen from a public university in Malaysia. The instrument used is a questionnaire. Findings of the study revealed that teachers and learners face challenges such as pronunciation and meaning when English songs are used in the English classrooms.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0620/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Effects of Process-Genre Approach on Writing Anxiety among English Academic Writing Learners in Pakistan

Writing ability is a prerequisite to be successful in academic pursuits. Pakistani student writers experience a range of issues, including psychological, cognitive, social, and linguistic when they write. Writing instructors need to use appropriate teaching strategies and methodologies to tackle writing-related issues (Khan & Zaki, 2018). Most of the Pakistani ESL writing students are educated through the stereotypical teacher-centered Product Approach focuses on the memorization of ready-made answers. As a result, the learners face great challenges; ESL writing Anxiety is one of the major challenges (Gopang, Bughio, & Pathan, 2018). The aim of this quasi-experimental study based on predominantly the post-positivist and the marginally pragmatic philosophical framework is to explore the effects of the Process-Genre Approach (PGA) on writing anxiety among ESL intermediate/pre-university students in Pakistan. The research tools were included to collect data: Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), 22-item multidimensional questionnaire, and interviews to investigate the effects of the experiment on writing apprehensions. Data were collected before and after the designed academic writing module based on the Process-Genre approach and pair sample t-test was applied to yield statistically significant results showing that average writing anxiety score was reduced from 77.17 to 66.72 among control group and from 73.57 to 50.25 among the experimental group. Quantities data collected through interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis also supplement that the treatment was effective to reduce writing anxiety.

Communication Strategies Used by EFL Learners in Task-Based English Debate

This research aims to describe the use of communication strategies in an EFL classroom during the completion of task-based debate activity. This research was conducted in an English course located in Sidoarjo. The subject of this study are 10 EFL intermediate level students. In line with that reason, this research is a qualitative study since it focuses on the depth of the comprehension of the communication strategies data rather than computing it. For obtaining the data, the researcher do observation and records learners’ verbal and non-verbal behaviour based on Dornyei (1995) taxonomy of communication strategies during the debate activity. The result showed that all taxonomies by Dornyei are used by the subjects i.e avoidance strategies, achievement strategies, and stalling strategies in the debate. There are various reason for leaners to choose those strategies to overcome their communication breakdowns during the short-time debate between speakers such as because it’s time-efficient, less confusing, and sound trustworthy to lengthen their time to think, keep the communication channel at hand, and keep up the discourse at the moment when learners face the difficulties. As the conclusion, English debate activity is considered as one of the task that promotes students-centered learning in a TBLT class, provides opportunities for students to speak Engish, and challenge students to use their language sources to strengthen their arguments. In the debate, learners mostly applied stalling strategies such as fillers since is considered very easy and quick for learners to use when they encounter problems such as nervous, lack of vocab, and lack of grammar structure in the English debate activities.
 Keywords: Communication strategies, task-based learning, English debate.

Rural online learning in the context of COVID 19 in South Africa: Evoking an inclusive education approach

This paper discusses the challenges faced by rural learners in South Africa in the context of the world pandemic commonly known as COVID-19. Rural learners face unprecedented challenges in adjusting to a new mode of life and learning, the latter being characterised by the predominant use of online, learning management systems and low-tech applications. The paper is informed by critical emancipatory research, I used participatory action research. A total of 10 learners and five teachers participated via Whatsapp. The paper answers two questions: what are the learning challenges faced by rural learners in South Africa, and how can online learning be enhanced in the context of COVID-19? The findings suggest that, while the South African government is promoting online learning as the only alternative in the context of COVID-19, this mode excludes many rural learners from teaching and learning, due to a lack of resources to connect to the internet, the learning management system, and low-tech software. The paper argues that rural learners are critical stakeholders in education and in the fight against COVID-19, and they cannot be left behind in efforts to fight the pandemic.

Developing An Ontology for Retrieving Massive Open Online Courses (moocs) Information in Coursera Platform

With the exponential proliferation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), online learners face difficulties in finding and highlighting relevant course contents. This makes learners to lose their motivation and surrender the learning process. For solving the issue and enhancing MOOCs resource utilization, Semantic web technology has the potential to play an important role by adding semantic annotation to the MOOCs resources for helping learners to access appropriate MOOCs pretty quickly according to their wishes. Furthermore, Ontology helps to shares a common understanding of the structure about any domain of interest amongst people and software agents. This paper presents Ontology for MOOCs Courses domain in the Coursera platform to retrieve the educational resources pretty quickly based on learners' request.

Listening Comprehension Orientations and Strategies in Learning English Language: A Review Paper

This paper reviews the listening comprehension orientations and strategies in learning English language among L2 learners. Listening skill is one of the most critical key in learning English language. Listening comprehension is a process of understanding the language input in which helps the EFL learners to receive and interact with language input and enables the emergence of other language skills. Heavy research was carried out concerning listening comprehension problems and strategies. Thus, this paper reviews approximately 50 papers with a time span from 2010 to 2019. By searching on Google Scholar and Research Gate for the terms: listening comprehension, listening comprehension orientations, listening comprehension difficulties, and listening comprehension strategies. In general, most studies found that whenever EFL learners face a difficulty in listening, they try to find out the most effective listening strategies to solve their listening difficulties. By doing this, they could improve their listening comprehension. Further research is recommended in order to review papers that dealt with the strategies of other skills i.e. reading strategies and speaking strategies since they are under researched. DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4033803

Listening Comprehension Orientations and Strategies in Learning English Language: A Review Paper

This paper reviews the listening comprehension orientations and strategies in learning English language among L2 learners. Listening skill is one of the most critical key in learning English language. Listening comprehension is a process of understanding the language input in which helps the EFL learners to receive and interact with language input and enables the emergence of other language skills. Heavy research was carried out concerning listening comprehension problems and strategies. Thus, this paper reviews approximately 50 papers with a time span from 2010 to 2019. By searching on Google Scholar and Research Gate for the terms: listening comprehension, listening comprehension orientations, listening comprehension difficulties, and listening comprehension strategies. In general, most studies found that whenever EFL learners face a difficulty in listening, they try to find out the most effective listening strategies to solve their listening difficulties. By doing this, they could improve their listening comprehension. Further research is recommended in order to review papers that dealt with the strategies of other skills i.e. reading strategies and speaking strategies since they are under researched.
 DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4033803

Psychological safety in feedback: What does it look like and how can educators work with learners to foster it?

Feedback conversations play a central role in health professions workplace learning. However, learners face a dilemma: if they engage in productive learning behaviours (such as asking questions, raising difficulties, offering opinions or contesting ideas), they risk exposing their limitations or offending the educator. This highlights the importance of psychological safety in encouraging learners to candidly engage in interactive dialogue and the co-construction of knowledge. Previous research has recommended that building safety, trust or an educational alliance is key to productive feedback encounters. Yet it is unclear how to translate this into practice. Hence our research question was: What does psychological safety look like in workplace feedback and how can educators work with learners to foster it? We analysed 36 videos of routine formal feedback episodes in clinical practice involving diverse health professionals. A psychologically safe learning environment was inferred when learners progressively disclosed information and engaged in productive learning behaviours during the conversation. We used thematic analysis to identify associated educator strategies, which seemed to promote psychological safety. Four themes were identified: (a) setting the scene for dialogue and candour; (b) educator as ally; (c) a continuing improvement orientation, and (d) encouraging interactive dialogue. Educators approaches captured within these themes, seemed to foster a psychologically safe environment by conveying a focus on learning, and demonstrating respect and support to learners. This study builds on claims regarding the importance of psychological safety in feedback by clarifying what psychological safety in workplace feedback conversations might look like and identifying associated educator approaches. The results may offer educators practical ways they could work with learners to encourage candid dialogue focused on improving performance.

Investigating Iraqi EFL Learners' Awareness of Selected English Proverbs

Learning English as a foreign language does not refer to the mastery of the rules or merely the grammar of English . Rather , it refers to the full understanding of the semantic ( and syntactic ) concepts of that language , and employing this in real life situations . In this sense , the current research represents an attempt at investigating the Iraqi EFL Learners’ recognition and production of selected English proverbs . The study is divided into five sections ( an introduction , three sections and a conclusion ) . Evidence shows that English proverbs represent a very important component in learning English as a foreign language , and that Iraqi EFL learners face considerable difficulties in understanding and employing them in real life situations .

An Investigation of the Iranian EFL Learners’ Perceptions Towards the Most Common Writing Problems

Inasmuch as the fact that writing is a cognitively demanding task and as a step toward overcoming some of the barriers English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners face during writing performance, this study attempted to investigate Iranian EFL learners’ perceptions toward the most common writing difficulties. To this end, 120 Iranian EFL learners from Golestan University, Iran, filled out a reliable and validated questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire and the semi-structured interviews ( N = 24) revealed that most of the participants agreed that for teaching grammar and punctuation, they should be embedded in a context and be integrated with the four skills. They also believed that teachers should use punctuation appropriately in their writings themselves and teach them to students explicitly. Besides, it was believed that through using mnemonics, students can better learn words spelling. The results of the interviews revealed grammar, spelling, punctuation, choice of words, organization, and familiarity with genres and rhetorical structures, negative transfer from Persian to English, and idiomatic expressions and collocations are the other factors that make the writing task difficult. Based on the students’ perceptions, the findings of this study can inform English language teachers to teach grammar, punctuation, and spelling by contextualizing them in an appropriate context, and they offer some practical implications for teachers, learners, material developers, and curriculum designers in this regard.

Iraqi EFL Learners' Recognition and Production of English Derivational Suffixes

تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى اختبار تمييز المتعلمين العراقيين في اللغة الإنجليزية كلغة أجنبية وتحصيلهم للواحق المشتقة باللغة الإنجليزية وهي الاسم والفعل والصفة والظرف. تفترض الدراسة ان المتعلمين للغة الإنجليزية كلغة أجنبية يجدون صعوبة في تكوين أجزاء صحيحة جديدة من الكلام من الجذور بسبب عدم التأكد من اللواحق الاشتقاقية المناسبة. كما أنهم يميلون إلى استخدام اللواحق المشتقة مع أجزاء مختلفة من الكلام اعتمادا على عوامل مختلفة مثل التخمين والتعميم. عينة هذه الدراسة هي طلاب السنة الرابعة العراقيين في قسم اللغة الإنجليزية/ كلية التربية ابن رشد/ جامعة بغداد للعام الدراسي (2014-2015). لتحقيق الهدف من هذه الدراسة، تم بناء اختبار يتكون من سؤالين سؤال متعدد الخيارات ضمن مستوى التمييز وسؤال تكملة ضمن مستوى التحصيل. تبين نتائج الاختبار أن متعلمي الجامعة العراقيين في اللغة الإنجليزية كلغة أجنبية يواجهون صعوبة في التعرف على اللواحق المشتقة لأجزاء مختلفة من الكلام وتحصيلها. وفي ضوء نتائج البحث، تم استخلاص بعض الاستنتاجات وتقديم عدد من التوصيات والاقتراحات.

On the nature of collocations and ways of teaching them in foreign language classes

AbstractWhen it comes to teaching vocabulary in foreign language classes words are often taught in isolation, without regard to the context in which they appear. The paper draws attention to the importance of teaching words in context so that the meaning of a word often results from the meaning of a larger construction it is part of. After presenting the morpho-syntactic and semantic characteristics of collocations, and the difficulties language learners face in acquiring them, the paper presents a few ideas on how to teach collocations, giving examples of activities and exercises that can facilitate the learning process. The focus has been laid on activities that can complement the lessons in class, can be applicable at different levels and also require relatively little preparation from the part of the teacher. In addition, an important aspect has been to choose activities that language learning have fun doing (that include creativity, problem solving, humor, real life examples, own experiences, etc.) and that integrate the necessary language learning skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing). Without the intention of being exhaustive, the paper concentrates on those activities and tasks that present collocations in their entirety, as constructions, assuming that these are the most useful for students. While the ideas presented are generally applicable in foreign language classes, the present paper has been written with native Hungarian speakers in mind.

Foreign Language Learning Characteristics of Deaf and Severely Hard‐of‐Hearing Students

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate deaf and severely hard‐of‐hearing students’ foreign language learning characteristics. In order to provide a better understanding of the challenges this group of learners face, a mixed methods study was designed including a questionnaire survey to provide generalizable results for our context and an interview study to get a deeper understanding of the issue from the insiders’ perspective as well. Data was collected in three European countries with piloted and barrier‐free instruments. In order to investigate their foreign language learning processes, deaf and severely hard‐of‐hearing students’ motivation, beliefs, and strategies were measured and analyzed. Our results indicate that deaf and severely hard‐of‐hearing students’ foreign language learning experiences are fraught with challenges and setbacks despite their motivation and eagerness to learn foreign languages. To overcome these difficulties motivating and effective learning environments have to be created where the use of the national sign language contributes to the efficiency of teaching. Furthermore, teaching should include the presentation of effective learning strategies as well as the introduction of autonomous ways of learning.

Implementation Intentions Related to Self-Regulatory Processes Do Not Enhance Learning in a Multimedia Environment.

Learners face various obstacles during learning from illustrated texts that can be conceptualized against the backdrop of frameworks of self-regulated learning. According to these frameworks, for learning to be successful, students must use appropriate cognitive strategies, hold adequate self-efficacy beliefs, and invest sufficient effort in learning. We investigated whether implementation intentions (if-then-plans) relating to these self-regulatory processes improve learning in a multimedia environment and whether they differ in their effectiveness depending on the self-regulatory process that they address. Learners were either asked to internalize an implementation intention relating to cognitive strategies, self-efficacy beliefs, or effort, or they did not receive any instructional support (control condition). Then, they learned about a mechanical system from a multimedia message and finally were tested on the learned contents. Contrary to expectations, none of the implementation intentions increased learning outcome, compared with the control condition, nor did the conditions differ from each other. However, implementation intentions interacted with the self-efficacy beliefs that learners already held. Higher self-efficacy beliefs were associated with better learning outcome, unless learners received an implementation intention telling them to use a multimedia-specific cognitive strategy. Interfering cognitive processes are discussed as a possible explanation for this interaction. In summary, implementation intentions should be further investigated and optimized before they can be implemented in real-life learning contexts.

Learners’ experience and perceived impact of a health literacy program in adult basic education: a qualitative study

Qualitative interview study. We conducted semistructured interviews as part of the evaluation of the 18-week health literacy program, with participants purposively recruited from six health literacy classes (n = 22). Researchers trained in qualitative methods interviewed adult learners either face to face or over the phone using a topic guide. Data was analysed using the Framework method, a matrix-based approach to thematic analysis. The majority of interviewees were female, lived in metropolitan areas and were from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Most had existing self-reported health problems and inadequate functional health literacy. Most participants described positive impacts of the health literacy course on their language, literacy and numeracy skills, functional health literacy skills, and health knowledge. They also reported being able to translate this into health actions including interacting with providers, accessing and using healthcare, and managing health and illness (e.g. making healthier food choices). Learners also described positive social outcomes of the course, including feelings of connectedness and interpersonal trust within a new network of learners, and reported sharing new knowledge with others in their communities. The findings add value to existing limited evidence that has demonstrated the untapped potential of adult basic education to develop health literacy skills among socially disadvantaged groups. Learners valued the opportunity to share experiences in structured group learning, and reported confidence to transfer new knowledge into their home and wider social network.

Threshold concepts and sustainability: features of a contested paradigm

Threshold concepts describe the core concepts that people must master if they are to effectively think from within a new discipline or paradigm. Here, I discuss threshold concepts relevant to the science and practice of sustainability, unpacking the persistent challenges and critiques that sustainability has faced over the decades. Sustainability is immensely popular, but also endlessly critiqued as being naïve, vague, and easy to co-opt. I argue that these challenges can be traced to sustainability’s status as a robust, alternative world view to the industrial, neoliberal paradigm. The threshold concepts discussed below are troublesome, and new learners face significant challenges when trying to learn them and move into the paradigm. Here, I review five threshold concepts that are widely discussed as important to sustainability: complexity, collaborative institutions, multiple ways of knowing, no panaceas, and adaptability. This list is not intended as comprehensive but exemplary of sustainability as a pluralistic paradigm. Recognizing the special status of these and other threshold concepts within sustainability, and the linkages and dependencies among them, is an important advance for sustainability education and practice. I also offer some suggestions on classroom activities that have proved effective in helping people through the process of learning these concepts.

A syntactic-based approach to the perception and production of English verbs’ argument structures by Iranian EFL learners

Foreign language learners face learnability problems in the perception and production of English verbs’ argument structures manifested by different verbs. The purpose of this study was to investiga...

Phrasal Verbs in Learner English: A Corpus-based Study of Lithuanian and Polish Learners of English

Phrasal verbs, though very common in the English language, are acknowledged as difficult to acquire by non-native learners of English. The present study examines this issue focusing on two learner groups from different mother tongue backgrounds, i.e. Lithuanian and Polish advanced students of English. The analysis is conducted based on Granger’s (1996) Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis methodology, investigating the Lithuanian and Polish components of the International Corpus of Learner English, as well as the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays. The results obtained in the study prove that both learner groups underuse phrasal verbs compared with native English speakers. It is concluded that this could be due to the learners’ limited repertoire of phrasal verbs as they employ significantly fewer phrasalverb types than native speakers. Furthermore, it is noticed that learners face similar stylistic, semantic and syntactic difficulties in the use of this language feature. In particular, the analysis shows that such errors might be caused by native language interference, as well as the inherent complexity of phrasal verbs. The present study not only helps to account for the challenges that are common to those language groups which lack phrasal verbs in their linguistic repository, but also provides insights into the understanding of advanced learner language.