The Discourse of Professionalism in an Office Memorandum

Discourse in the context of the adult EFL Conversation school in Japan have changed as the more severe economic climate and population decline have depleted the numbers of those choosing to engage in English conversation as a hobby activity. While many instructors are neither TESOL trained nor have a background in education, there is a pressure to professionalize educational services. Institutional factors often minimize the opportunities for teachers to engage in self-reflective or professional development practices and consequently, EFL Conversation school teachers in Japan do not receive the status generally accorded to educators in mainstream educational contexts. Social practices and identities are constantly subject to change. The struggle to transform the practices of teachers (and hence, transmit a culture of professionalism) is on-going. This paper analyses both the generic structure and systemic functional lexico-grammatical choices of an office memorandum in order to reveal the construction of power relations in institutional discourse and how the discourse of professionalism is used to transform the practices of English conversation teachers

Willingness to Communicate: A Case Study

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) is a useful conceptual construct in examining second language (L2) communication. This case study utilizes the WTC construct to investigate one student’s willingness or unwillingness to engage in second language (L2) use with native English speaker (NES) and Japanese students of English and examines how the participant’s responses demonstrate links to other components of the WTC construct. The study found that WTC with specific interlocutors is influenced by orientations to learning the L2, affiliations to gender within the L2 group and proficiency levels in the first language (L1) group

Investigating Improvements in Listening Using Levelled Shadowing Materials

The improvement of listening comprehension skills is often a challenging task for language teachers and learners. Over the years many methods have been developed to help learners and instructors alike. Recently, in Japan especially, shadowing is generally accepted as an effective and efficient means for developing learners’ listening skills. Many studies have reported learners’ listening competence advancing after being given short-term shadowing training. However, an exact method for implementing shadowing is still yet to be determined. Therefore, this study was conducted to further explore effective procedures to implement shadowing. Shadowing often uses "easy" material the learner can mimic repeatedly, but a study conducted at Akita University indicated using a combination of two levels of materials was more effective than just using materials of a similar difficulty level for students of the same intermediate level (Hamada, 2012). This study further explores those results, using a variation on the training materials. The purpose of the study was to determine if alternating two levels of materials showed similar improvement for students of varying levels. The results show that a combination of two different difficulties of materials improved learners of varying levels of proficiency listening comprehension skills

Oceanographic barriers, divergence, and admixture : phylogeography and taxonomy of two putative subspecies of short-finned pilot whale

Funding:Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet Environmental Readiness Division and NMFS Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center; NMFS West Coast Region; Scripps Institution of Oceanography Edna Bailey Sussman Research Fellowship; and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.Genomic phylogeography plays an important role in describing evolutionary processes and their geographic, ecological, or cultural drivers. These drivers are often poorly understood in marine environments, which have fewer obvious barriers to mixing than terrestrial environments. Taxonomic uncertainty of some taxa (e.g., cetaceans), due to the difficulty in obtaining morphological data, can hamper our understanding of these processes. One such taxon, the short‐finned pilot whale, is recognized as a single global species but includes at least two distinct morphological forms described from stranding and drive hunting in Japan, the “Naisa” and “Shiho” forms. Using samples (n = 735) collected throughout their global range, we examine phylogeographic patterns of divergence by comparing mitogenomes and nuclear SNP loci. Our results suggest three types within the species: an Atlantic Ocean type, a western/central Pacific and Indian Ocean (Naisa) type, and an eastern Pacific Ocean and northern Japan (Shiho) type. mtDNA control region differentiation indicates these three types form two subspecies, separated by the East Pacific Barrier: Shiho short‐finned pilot whale, in the eastern Pacific Ocean and northern Japan, and Naisa short‐finned pilot whale, throughout the remainder of the species' distribution. Our data further indicate two diverging populations within the Naisa subspecies, in the Atlantic Ocean and western/central Pacific and Indian Oceans, separated by the Benguela Barrier off South Africa. This study reveals a process of divergence and speciation within a globally‐distributed, mobile marine predator, and indicates the importance of the East Pacific Barrier to this evolutionary process.PostprintPeer reviewe

The incidence of unpleasant dreams after sub-anaesthetic ketamine

Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)receptor antagonist with psychotogenic effects and for whichthere are diverse reports of whether pleasant or unpleasantdreams result during anaesthesia, post-operatively or aftersub-anaesthetic use. The aim was to assess in healthy volunteers the incidence ofunpleasant dreams over the three nights after receiving asub-anaesthetic dose of ketamine, in comparison to placebo,and with retrospective home nightmare frequency as acovariate.Thirty healthy volunteers completed questionnairesabout retrospective home dream recall and were then giveneither ketamine or placebo. Ketamine resulted in significantly more meandream unpleasantness relative to placebo and caused athreefold increase in the odds ratio for the incidence of anunpleasant dream. The number of dreams reported over thethree nights did not differ between the groups. Theincidence of unpleasant dreams after ketamine use waspredicted by retrospectively assessed nightmare frequencyat home.Ketamine causes unpleasant dreams over thethree post-administration nights. This may be evidence of aresidual psychotogenic effect that is not found on standardself-report symptomatology measures or a result of disturbedsleep electrophysiology. The results have theoretical implications for the relationship between nightmares and schizotypy

Attended

PRE2: How to Web 2.0 This session was quite interesting in that it went over many of todays web 2.0 websites. The session itself could be considered introductory allowing people to view and play with web 2.0 websites. It did not go into greater depth of why web 2.0 could be considered beneficial to an institution or what the adoption rate is like or the technology behind web 2.0. For this particular presentation I was disappointed at the content that was provided. CONFRENCE: I spent two full days at the conference attending as many workshops as time would allow. These workshops for the most part were fascinating and the most important thing I learned was that we, as an institution, are not alone in our goals. It was informative to see the many presentations as well as discuss with some of the presenters, the solutions that they have come up with in managing a transition of a rebrand or the implementation of a CMS like alfresco or both concurrently. Numerous ideas were shown by other institutions, which I feel, allowed us (Tim Terry’s group also attended) to bring home the best ideas. It also allowed us to learn of potential roadblocks that we may face that similar institutions have encountered in similar situations with a project like the university is implementing. I would love to do a presentation next year in regards to Google Analytics. There were very little presentations that actually delved into the marketing side of the web and ways in which an institution could increase the amount of traffic driven to there website. We have done this quite successfully and I feel that it would be a great opportunity to share out story off success, especially in regards to the online ad campaign from the School Of Business. POST2: Advanced CSS Workshop This workshop was great fun to attend and a good example in the future of how to present and involve th participants. We went over numerous technologies that can be implement-using CSS. Numerous ideas were shared as well as each participant receiving a cd with the files as well as the completed solutions that were shown. It allowed attendees to follow along and fix mistakes as they went. Overall it was a great presentation that was full of many real world ideas that we as an institution could implement to get us through the next major upgrade to our website.1) PRE2: How to ... Web 2.0 PRESENTER: Matthew Winkel, The College of New Jersey ABSTRACT: Does this scenario sound familiar? 1.) You a attended a conference or webinar and learn about Web 2.0 tools. 2.) You decide to try out one or more of these tools. 3.) You add this task to your to-do list for when you return to work. 4.) But weeks or months go by and you still have not found time to use these new tools. In this half-day workshop you will have the time (and guidance) to set up some of the most popular Web 2.0 tools available including: Facebook, LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, Google Reader, Wordpress, and Zoho Wiki. We will also discuss best practices for using these tools for higher education Web development. Bring your wifi-enabled laptop. 2) POST2: Advanced CSS Workshop PRESENTER: Daniel M. Frommelt, University of Wisconsin - Platteville ABSTRACT: A hands-on opportunity to play with some advanced CSS concepts. Bring your laptops and an open mind. We\'ll cover many of the current hot design techniques: multi-column layout, faux-column layout, advanced image replacement techniques, advanced list manipulation, rounded corner boxes, son-of-suckerfish dropdowns, cross-column pull-outs, CSS hacks, and customized CSS for alternate devices. There will also be a discussion of emulators for alternate devices and a discussion about helpful tools for Web developers. Example files will be made available for the session that can be manipulated during the workshop. For those bringing laptops, please have a text editor and the current version of Firefox installed, as well as other browsers your institution may support. If you can not bring a laptop, you will be able to observe and work with the other participants. Final example files will be available on CD at the end of the workshop. This workshop assumes a basic understanding of CSS and XHTML principles.Academic & Professional Development Fund (A&PDF

Willingness to Communicate: A Case Study

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) is a useful conceptual construct in examining second language (L2) communication. This case study utilizes the WTC construct to investigate one student’s willingness or unwillingness to engage in second language (L2) use with native English speaker (NES) and Japanese students of English and examines how the participant’s responses demonstrate links to other components of the WTC construct. The study found that WTC with specific interlocutors is influenced by orientations to learning the L2, affiliations to gender within the L2 group and proficiency levels in the first language (L1) group

The Discourse of Professionalism in an Office Memorandum

Discourse in the context of the adult EFL Conversation school in Japan have changed as the more severe economic climate and population decline have depleted the numbers of those choosing to engage in English conversation as a hobby activity. While many instructors are neither TESOL trained nor have a background in education, there is a pressure to professionalize educational services. Institutional factors often minimize the opportunities for teachers to engage in self-reflective or professional development practices and consequently, EFL Conversation school teachers in Japan do not receive the status generally accorded to educators in mainstream educational contexts. Social practices and identities are constantly subject to change. The struggle to transform the practices of teachers (and hence, transmit a culture of professionalism) is on-going. This paper analyses both the generic structure and systemic functional lexico-grammatical choices of an office memorandum in order to reveal the construction of power relations in institutional discourse and how the discourse of professionalism is used to transform the practices of English conversation teachers

Investigating Improvements in Listening Using Levelled Shadowing Materials

The improvement of listening comprehension skills is often a challenging task for language teachers and learners. Over the years many methods have been developed to help learners and instructors alike. Recently, in Japan especially, shadowing is generally accepted as an effective and efficient means for developing learners’ listening skills. Many studies have reported learners’ listening competence advancing after being given short-term shadowing training. However, an exact method for implementing shadowing is still yet to be determined. Therefore, this study was conducted to further explore effective procedures to implement shadowing. Shadowing often uses "easy" material the learner can mimic repeatedly, but a study conducted at Akita University indicated using a combination of two levels of materials was more effective than just using materials of a similar difficulty level for students of the same intermediate level (Hamada, 2012). This study further explores those results, using a variation on the training materials. The purpose of the study was to determine if alternating two levels of materials showed similar improvement for students of varying levels. The results show that a combination of two different difficulties of materials improved learners of varying levels of proficiency listening comprehension skills

Diets of northern right whale dolphin, Pacific white-sided dolphin and common dolphins in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem

ICES Annual Science Conference 2021, 6–10 September, Virtual conferenceN