10,452 research outputs found

    Instantaneous conventions : the emergence of flexible communicative signals

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    Humans can communicate even with few existing conventions in common (e.g., when they lack a shared language). We explored what makes this phenomenon possible with a nonlinguistic experimental task requiring participants to coordinate towards a common goal. We observed participants creating new communicative conventions using the most minimal possible signals. These conventions, furthermore, changed trial-by-trial in response to shared environmental and task constraints. Strikingly, as a result, signals of the same form were able to successfully convey contradictory messages from trial to trial. Such behavior implicates what we term "joint inference," in which social interactants are inferring, in the moment, the most sensible communicative convention in light of their common ground. Joint inference may help to elucidate how communicative conventions emerge “instantaneously,” and how they are modified and reshaped into the elaborate systems of conventions involved in human communication, including natural languages

    Virtual Reality Game Classroom Implementation: Teacher Perspectives and Student Learning Outcomes

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    This study explored the influence of the virtual reality game (VRG) House of Languages on the ESL vocabulary acquisition of intermediate school students and establish how VR technology aids in improving the ESL vocabulary skills. A quasi-experimental design helped determine the impact of the VR use intervention on the learning process over the traditional ESL vocabulary acquisition method. Participation of 64 students divided randomly into an experimental group and control group; each group contained 32 students and their teacher from a local suburban intermediate school in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia. The findings from this study of independent t-tests at the end of experimental period indicated that students using the VR game House of Languages had greater achievement in learning vocabulary than those using the traditional method in learning vocabulary. The findings of paired t-tests indicated that the students in both the experimental group and control group scored higher in the post-test compared to their pre-test scores. Also, the descriptive statistics used to analyze teacher’ and students’ perceptions surveys indicate a perceived usefulness of VRG in the learning process. In spite of the fact that the participants of this study were intermediate school students, the VR technology made it applicable to primary school and high school students. So, it would be essential to create awareness among the educators that the use of the new VR technology as an effective vocabulary acquisition method in learning process should be engaged in all K12 stages not only to improve the vocabulary acquisition but to go beyond that to enhance the degree of achievement

    An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

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    How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

    Enhancing students’ vocabulary knowledge using the Facebook environment

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    This study investigates the effectiveness of using Facebook in enhancing vocabulary knowledge among Community College students. Thirty-three (33) Community College students are exposed to the use of Facebook as an environment of learning and enhancing their English vocabulary. They are given a pre-test and a post-test and the findings indicate that students perform significantly better in the post-test compared to the pre-test. It appears that Facebook could be considered as a supplementary learning environment or learning platform or a learning tool; with meaningful and engaging activities that require students to collaborate, network and functions as a community of practice, particularly for introverted students with low proficiency levels and have low self-esteem

    Enhancing Students’ Motivation in the EFL Classroom Through Life is Strange: A Digital Game-Based Learning Scenario Proposal

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    Màster Universitari de Formació del Professorat de Secundària Obligatòria i Batxillerat, Facultat d'Educació, Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2022-2023. Tutora: Gemma López[eng] This research study introduces a learning scenario integrating the video game Life is Strange (DontNod, 2015) into the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. It explores the viability and practicality of incorporating digital game-based instruction into English language learning and investigates its impact on student motivation and engagement. The development and partial implementation of the learning scenario in the 4th of ESO classroom are guided by design principles that align with language learning objectives and follow the task-based supported language teaching (TSLT) methodology. Results indicate that the integration of the video game in the instruction generates a substantial learning experience. Students exhibit increased motivation and engagement, actively participating in the tasks. In conclusion, incorporating the video game Life is Strange into instruction effectively fosters student motivation in English language learning. Further research is needed to explore long-term effects, but video games in education promise to enhance student motivation and create engaging learning experiences.[cat] Aquest estudi de recerca presenta una situació d’aprenentatge que integra el videojoc Life is Strange (DontNod, 2015) a l'aula d'anglès com a llengua estrangera. L'objectiu és explorar la viabilitat per incorporar l'ensenyament basat en jocs digitals en l'aprenentatge de la llengua anglesa i investigar el seu impacte en la motivació dels estudiants. El desenvolupament i la implementació parcial de l'escenari d'aprenentatge a l'aula de 4t d'ESO es guien per uns principis de disseny que s'alineen amb els objectius d'aprenentatge, tot i seguint la metodologia TSLT (task-based language teaching). Els resultats indiquen que la integració del videojoc a la classe genera una experiència d'aprenentatge substancial. Els estudiants mostren una major motivació i compromís, participant activament en les activitats d'aprenentatge. En conclusió, la incorporació del videojoc Life is Strange a l’aula fomenta de manera efectiva la motivació dels estudiants en l'aprenentatge de la llengua anglesa. Es necessiten més investigacions per explorar els efectes a llarg termini, però l'ús de videojocs a l'educació és prometedor per millorar la motivació dels estudiants i crear experiències d'aprenentatge atractives

    Synthetic voices in the foreign language context

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    This study evaluated the voice of a modern English text-to-speech (TTS) system in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context in terms of its speech quality, ability to be understood by L2 users, and potential for focus on specific language forms. Twenty-nine Brazilian EFL learners listened to stories and sentences, produced by a TTS voice and a human voice, and rated them on a 6-point Likert scale according to holistic criteria for evaluating pronunciation: Comprehensibility, naturalness, and accuracy. In addition, they were asked to answer a set of comprehension questions (to assess understanding), to complete a dictation/transcription task to measure intelligibility, and to identify whether the target past -ed form was present or not in decontextualized sentences. Results indicate that the performance of both the TTS and human voices were perceived similarly in terms of comprehensibility, while ratings for naturalness were unfavorable for the synthesized voice. For text comprehension, dictation, and aural identification tasks, participants performed relatively similarly in response to both voices. These findings suggest that TTS systems have the potential to be used as pedagogical tools for L2 learning, particularly in EFL settings, where natural occurrence of the target language is limited or non-existent

    Mapping Sound Properties and Oenological Characters by a Collaborative Sound Design Approach -Towards an Augmented Experience

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    International audienceThe paper presents a specific sound design process implemented upon a collaboration with an important stakeholder of the wine (Champagne) industry. The goal of the project was to link sound properties with oenological dimensions in order to compose a sonic environment able to realise a multisensory experience during the wine tasting protocol. This creation has resulted from a large scale methodological approach based on the semantic transformation concept (from wine words to sound words) and deployed by means of a codesign method-after having shared respective skills of each field (sound and oenology). A precise description of the workflow is detailed in the paper, The outcomes of the work are presented, either in terms of realisation or conceptual knowledge acquisition. Then, future perspectives for the following of the work are sketched, especially regarding the notion of evaluation. The whole approach is finally put in the broad conceptual framework of 'sciences of sound design' that is developed and argued in the light of this study

    Pairs of cleaner fish prolong interaction duration with client reef fish by increasing service quality

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    We present field experiments showing that levels of cooperation quantitatively predict the duration of interactions between the cleaner wrasse and its reef fish clients. Our study contrasts the general assumption that cooperating is a discrete decision, lacking a time dimension that would allow for continuous rather than discrete decisions. Our results precisely fit the predictions of a recent model that attempted to increase biological validity through the incorporation of a time component in cooperative interaction
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