Information Outlook, May 2003

Volume 7, Issue 5https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2003/1004/thumbnail.jp

Integrating semiotic resources in CALL activity designs

Grounded in the three-tiered transdisciplinary SLA framework of the Douglas Fir Group (2016), we explore how the concept of ‘semiotic resources’ may be integrated into CALL activity designs. Starting at the macro level, we discuss how language ideology may influence where to situate semiotic resources within initial design considerations. We next move to the meso level, the site of community and social negotiation, to look at how the departmental culture and personal orientation may influence design choices. Our attention then turns to the micro level where we define the roles semiotic resources may play through concepts used in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Moving from theory to practice, we describe how 14 pre-service ESL/EFL teachers in a graduate-level course designed CALL activities. Based on an analysis of their CALL activity designs and research-informed commentaries, we show how students were concerned with designs that highlighted textual aspects of semiotic resources. Such results, not surprisingly, point to the ways macro and meso levels may influence how semiotic resources surface within micro-level activity designs. We conclude by discussing the importance of taking a transdisciplinary approach to promoting language learning as semiotic learning in CALL designs and propose several areas for future research

Dynamic conceptions of input, output and interaction: Vietnamese EFL lecturers learning second language acquisition theory

Although research into language teacher learning and cognition and teaching innovations oriented to communicative tasks has been abundant, little has addressed EFL teachers’ learning and conceiving of SLA principles underlying task-based language teaching. The study reported in the present thesis aims to fill this gap, specifically investigating teachers’ learning and conceiving of the notions of rich comprehensible language input, and authentic output and interaction, referred to as ‘SLA facilitating conditions’. The study explores three issues: teachers’ conceptions of the SLA facilitating conditions based on their practices in the tertiary English classroom; teachers’ perceptions of implementing the conditions, including factors affecting the implementation; and teachers’ perceived learning or change as a result of the process. Data for the study were obtained from six Vietnamese EFL lecturers who voluntarily participated in two short professional development workshops focusing on language input, and output and interaction. The data collection process was cumulative, beginning with pre-workshop interviews, followed by collection of lesson plans, lesson-based interviews, reflective writing, observation of lesson recordings, and a questionnaire. Analysis and interpretation followed a process of triangulation, and drew on the author’s knowledge of the context and the teachers’ backgrounds. The results showed that the six teachers held contextualised conceptions of language input, and output and interaction. Although they believed that these conditions are important for language learning, their conceptions based on their implementation of the conditions reflected a synthetic product-oriented view of language learning and teaching. The teachers demonstrated an accommodation of the notion of comprehensible input into their existing pedagogical understanding, and revealed a conception of language output oriented to accuracy and fluency of specific target language items. Tasks and activities for interaction were mainly to provide students with contexts to use the target language items meaningfully rather than to communicate meaning. Most teachers delayed communicative tasks until their students were acquainted with the language content of the day. Such conceptions and practices had a connection with both conceptual/experiential and contextual factors, namely their prior training and experience, time limitations, syllabus, and students’ characteristics. The study also showed that although the teachers’ perceptions of the feasibility of promoting rich language input and authentic output and interaction were neutral, they thought promoting these conditions was relevant to students’ learning, congruent with their pre-existing beliefs about teaching English, and this granted them a sense of agency. The teachers also reported they became more aware of input, and output and interaction in teaching, confident, and purposeful in actions, and some reported a widened view of English language teaching. The study confirms that teacher learning and cognition is conceptually and contextually conditioned (Borg, 2006). In terms of this, it provides a model of how EFL teachers’ learning SLA is constrained by prior pedagogical beliefs and contextual conditions. In conjunction with previous research, the study provided evidence to suggest that communicative and task-based language teaching would appear to run counter to existing beliefs about teaching and practical conditions in Asian EFL situations. This lends support to a more flexible organic approach to employing tasks, perhaps considering the extent to which and in what ways communicative tasks are pedagogically useful to the EFL classroom. An implication is that for any new approaches like task-based language teaching to be incorporated into teachers’ existing repertoire, teachers’ conceptions of language input and interaction, and the conceptual and practical constraints influencing their thinking and practice should be considered and addressed. In a broader sense, approaches to teacher education and development should take a constructivist perspective on teacher learning, taking into account the local context of teaching and teachers’ existing cognition

Prosper. An evaluation of tourism's contribution to regional economies

Prosper has delivered a three part model for assessing and enhancing the value of tourism in regional areas. The first part of the model uses simple indicators to provide an assessment of the economic, social, and environmental value attached to tourism. An indicators approach was adopted following extensive review of the application of more complex approaches to regional economic analysis. The review found that complex approaches are unlikely to produce results of sufficient validity and applicability to warrant their high resource costs (time, money, and skills). Complex models are also more difficult to maintain. The economic value is represented through quantitative indicators relating to employment and the number of businesses in tourism related sectors. These are all relative indicators (for example, proportion of all businesses which are businesses in the tourism sector or proportion of change in employment that can be attributed to change in tourism related employment). These indicators are drawn from national data sets which provide information for statistical local areas and/or postcode areas. This offers the opportunity to develop and deliver consistent national profiles through a vehicle such as Decipher. National standard data sets are supplemented in the model by more qualitative assessments of tourism’s contribution to the local economy made by business operators through interviews or surveys. Again, tracking the change in these assessments over time is the key to the model. Social and environmental values are substantially more difficult to assess. The Prosper case studies have included qualitative assessments derived from business and community meetings, local government and other administrative documents, media and a simplified network analysis identifying the extent to which community based organisations interact with the delivery of tourism services. Data sets have been identified which would allow a quantitative analysis of the extent to which tourism activity (visitor movements, business activity, business construction) encroaches on environmentally sensitive areas or is responsible for redevelopment or preservation of built environments. The case studies have not been able to implement this quantitative analysis. The second part of the model conducts a ‘diagnostic’ assessment of the capacity in the region to harness the value of tourism through innovation. Innovation is seen as a very important mechanism for both identifying regional issues and developing responses to those issues. Innovation is widely accepted in the literature as a driver of economic growth, and concepts such as ‘systems of innovation’ and ‘regional systems of innovation’ have become common in understanding how that innovation can be encouraged and placed within technical or geographical contexts. The diagnostic element of the Prosper model uses a series of techniques (including historical document analysis, interviews, and network analysis) to investigate the characteristics of region’s human tourism resources in relation to their ‘innovation potential’. Innovation potential is influenced by: • Economic competence – the extent to which those resources include capacity to manage projects and implement new ideas; • Clustering of resources – the spatial relationships between tourism attractions and amenities and nontourism amenities and resources which may be critical in the delivery of tourism product; • Networks – the social and professional relationships between tourism attractions and amenities and nontourism amenities and resources which may be critical in the delivery of tourism product; • Development blocks – the existence of sufficient new resources or new ways of looking at existing resources to provide opportunities for innovation. Development blocks need also to be a source of tension or disequilibrium so that their use is contested and therefore options more likely to be scrutinized as to their viability; • Entrepreneurship – the capacity for human resources to engage in new tasks and drive activity; • Critical mass – the relationship between the capacity to supply tourism product, and the capacity to access sufficient and appropriate markets (including resident markets) to support ongoing supply; • Local government – the extent to which local government considers tourism an important issue and is willing to engage in the innovation process • Production and distribution of knowledge – the extent to which the history and current status of tourism is understood and communicated, and the degree to which stakeholders can access and apply new information for identifying the potential or need for change, assessing the viability of projects, and evaluating activities; • Social, political and cultural capital – the strength of the social, political and cultural environments, and the degree to which those environments can be effectively harnessed to support tourism innovation. The third part of the model uses ‘visioning’ techniques (drawing in part on experiences from Sustainable Tourism CRC projects on ‘Gold Coast Visioning’ led by Professor Bill Faulkner at Griffith University, and research by Walker, Lee, Goddard, Kelly & Pedersen, 2005) to engage stakeholders in developing strategies for identifying tourism value issues (based on the community awareness of the value of tourism, aspirations for enhancing value, and strategies for addressing deficiencies in innovation potential). A number of processes are available for applying visioning techniques. Our case studies typically involved community leaders accepting ownership of the results of the application of the first components of the model and, in a facilitated or nonfacilitated way, delivering these results broadly through the community. In some cases, strategies emerged entirely from within the region, while in others, the research team was further engaged to collate strategy suggestions and summarise the arguments attached to these suggestions. In most cases, the final case study write-up included reference to suggestions which appeared likely to be carried forward. The Prosper model was tested in thirteen case studies, not simply to establish whether the relationships hypothesized between innovation potential and harnessing the value of tourism could be observed, but also to establish to extent to which participating regions viewed the application of the model as important and worthwhile in their attempts to move forward. The case studies were a mix of five new studies conducted using the Prosper model in a direct way and meta-analysis of eight previous case studies. The short time frame for the research (2 and ½ years) and the relatively long term nature of change made it impossible to design the research to evaluate the success of the strategies developed or any specific innovations in new case studies, so the metaanalysis studies were significant in this respect. The case studies strongly supported the second part of the model in particular, and the research served as an influential tool for many of the case study communities who were able to implement programs of value monitoring (through quantitative or qualitative means), identify ways in which their systems of innovation could be strengthened, and develop context specific mechanisms for identifying and assessing the feasibility of tourism development proposals. The research has delivered a number of outputs which may be used in dissemination and commercialisation of the intellectual property. A stand-alone publication reviewing the applicability of various economic value assessment techniques to regional tourism has been produced. A quick guide to the Prosper model and assessing whether application of the model would assist a particular region has been drafted, and is slated for development in collaboration with Sustainable Tourism CRC. A detailed methodology specification has been prepared, and may be used as the basis of consulting services or the conduct of further case studies. The quantitative data sets (Census, Sensis, TTF employment analysis, labour force statistics etc.) may be made available through Decipher and included in a structured Decipher product which facilitates analysis and interpretation. A book containing research results of the thirteen case studies and an overview of the relationship between those case studies and the Prosper model has been edited by Dean Carson and Dr Jim Macbeth and has been submitted to the Sustainable Tourism CRC editorial team led by Professor Chris Cooper at the University of Queensland

A Study of the Integration of Communicative Competence (Cc) Features in Teaching the Oral Skills (Listening and Speaking) to English Majors at the Department of English, University of Benghazi/ Libya

Since its advent in the 1970s, the notion of communicative competence (CC) has a tremendous influence on English language teaching, trends, theories, models, and paradigms. Since the 1970s, applied linguists, second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and educationalists have accepted the notion of communicative competence (CC) as the underpinning theory of second language acquisition, the objective of communicative language teaching approach (CLT), and as a measurement of language learner’s proficiency. The purpose of this study was to investigate the inclusion, teaching and testing of the features of the notion of communicative competence (CC) in teaching the oral skills to the English majors. In addition, this study investigated the instructors and the students’ perceptions of the notion of CC features when teaching and learning the oral skills. The study investigated the teaching and learning of four characteristics of CC, namely, linguistic, sociolinguistic, strategic and pragmatic. These four characteristics were clearly identified using pedagogical criteria extracted from the prominent CC frameworks of Bachman (1990), Bachman and Palmer (1996), Canale (1983) Canale and Swain (1980) , Celce-Murcia, (1995, 2007), and Hymens, (1972). This study also used CC pedagogical specifications recognized by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The informants were head of the English department (N = 1), instructors (N = 5), and students (N = 54). The tools of data collection were questionnaires, textbook evaluation, and student self-evaluation competence descriptors. The analysis involved quantitative / qualitative approach using Atlis.ti, SPSS and Excel. The results showed that though both the instructors and students perceived the high importance of teaching the different characteristics of CC ( linguistic, pragmatic, sociolinguistic , strategic) in the oral skills course, the focus of the teaching material, teaching practice and test content was on the linguistic competence and very little was done to promote the other CC components. The results also evidenced. Moreover, the student competence self-descriptive can- do-statements results showed that the students have high control over linguistic competence descriptors and low control on the pragmatic, sociolinguistic and strategic competence descriptors. The results suggest that there is a discrepancy between the learners’ expectations and perceptions of their language learning and the reality of teaching and learning the notion of communicative competence

On the End-user QoS-Awareness of a Distributed Service Environment

A lot of attention has been given to network quality of service and efforts to make layers on top of the network also QoS-aware increase noticeably. This paper explores QoS-aware service provisioning at a level close to end-user's perception. It shows how end-user oriented QoS requirements have been elaborated in a high level design onto QoS support of a distributed service platform and how realized QoS can be monitored. A GameHall has been used as the application context for which validation of the explored and applied concepts and models for QoS specification and monitoring have been exercised

Exploring whether learning can contribute towards sustainable development : a case study of a social enterprise in the clothing and textile industry in the Western Cape

This study explores whether learning can contribute towards Sustainable Development by focusing on a Fairtrade registered social enterprise, named Shanti (pseudonym). Shanti was founded to provide unemployed and marginalised women with an opportunity to earn a living through establishing sewing cooperatives. The cooperatives are women’s worker cooperatives that are located in several townships in the Western Cape, South Africa. Through training it was intended for the women in the cooperatives and by association Shanti, to achieve Sustainable Development. The development strategy pursued by Shanti and the broad spectrum of the women’s learning was revealed. The study is inter-disciplinary and the conceptual framework therefore centered on two primary themes, namely development and learning. The development theme was divided into two sub-themes that considered mainstream and alternative development strategies. Mainstream development and the macro factors that related to it, namely globalization and neoliberalism were elucidated by theorists such as Stiglitz (2002) and Castells (1999). Of specific relevance to my study was the impact of neoliberalism on SA government policy that affected the Clothing and Textile (C&T) Industry, elaborated on by Ramdass (et al 2011) and Barnes (2005) among others. Alternatives to the mainstream, namely Sustainable Development, Fairtrade and cooperative development were proposed. The research differentiated between the general use of the term sustainable development and the holistic concept of Sustainable Development as informed by Dresner (2002). The learning theme primarily covered Prior and Experiential Learning (Fenwick 2001, Fischer 2005), as well as Women’s Learning which argues that women learn differently as a gendered group (Gallos 2000; Shrewsbury (1993). Finally the study explored issues that are particular to worker cooperatives, which were elaborated on by Philip (2003) and Lima (2007) among others