Immersion as a lifeway: the cultural sustainment and humanization of Mandarin dual language immersion teachers

The U.S. is growing in its recognition of the value of multilingualism, and is rapidly expanding educational programs, such as dual language immersion (DLI), to that end (Singleton et al., 2018). However, the historical socio-political, regulatory, and cultural contexts have led to a current climate that may not demonstrate equivalent value of its multilingual teachers (Flores & Rosa, 2015). With a concerning teacher shortage that is exacerbated for teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (MacIntyre et al., 2019), it is critical to understand factors that impact the wellbeing and satisfaction of such teachers in the U.S. educational system. In particular, with the complexities of globalization (Schaeffer, 2009) and a growing anti-Asian backlash (Chen et al., 2020), this study is concerned with the possible impact on teachers in programs such as Mandarin DLI, coveted for its language as a resource (M. Heller, 2003), as there is great potential for their workplace experience to be driven by transactional exchanges, rather than the desired transformative interaction in such a commodified climate. Therefore, using a qualitative phenomenological approach, this study focuses on the professional lived experiences of Mandarin language teachers within the ecological system (Bronfenbrenner, 1977) of their uniquely dual language immersion environment. Using the lenses of humanization (Freire, 1970; Todres et al., 2009) and cultural sustainment (Paris, 2012; Paris & Alim, 2017), this study examines the connection between such interactions and the resulting value expressed by the teachers. Thirteen Mandarin dual language immersion teachers participated in semi- structured interviews that contributed to rich and thick descriptive findings. The teachers’ insight led to implications regarding the systemic features in schools that can create culturally sustaining lifeways, develop humanizing leadership, and cultivate school communities as places of love that can collectively support the wellbeing and retention of diverse teachers

VR Empathy Training Tool

A person’s resilience to adversity and trauma is developed early on in his or her childhood. When parents display stress in front or neglect emotions of their children consistently, their children will form neural connections between areas of pain and stress. It is important to educate parents to properly handle children’s emotions and also control their own emotions and mindfulness during these interactions. We developed an iOS VR application accompanied by a Google Cardboard and a Mio Alpha fitness watch to record and display the stress level of the parent using his/her heart rate data. The progress of the users can be sent back to researchers for further study and also evaluation. This system allows parents to interact with a VR child to develop empathy, along with training their own emotional intelligence. Users can also view an intense scene of a VR parent displaying negative emotions in the child’s perspective. This system will eventually be used as an educational tool in the Resilient Families Program in San Jose. In the future, more complex interactions can be achieved by adding animation assets, and also increased accuracy in stress sensing by replacing the heart rate monitor with a more accurate biometric system

English for Mathematics and Science: current Malaysian language-in-education policies and practices

Bahasa Malaysia (the Malay language) was chosen as the national language to unite the linguistically diverse groups in Malaysia in the mid-1950s. This choice brought about a total change in education policy, whereby Bahasa Malaysia became the medium of instruction for all subjects (other than English) in public schools. The decision saw a complete reversal of the role of English, which before the implementation of the 1963 National Language Act was the medium of instruction and administration. The current milestone in policy change is the decision to make English the medium of instruction in mathematics and science. With this change, a number of corollaries emerged that may determine the direction of policy execution. This paper examines contentious reactions to this new policy from various interest groups, teacher trainers and classroom practitioners, and to the implementation of language education programmes related to the teaching of mathematics and science. Among the issues discussed are the perceived difficulty of mastering English, the advantaged and disadvantaged bilingual learner, the rural-urban dichotomy in learner capability, and the question of national identity. © 2006 S.H. Chan & H. Tan

Extracting and comparing the intricacies of metadiscourse of two written persuasive corpora

Previous studies (Wu 2007; Hyland, 2004; Hyland & Tse 2004; Intaraprawat & Steffensen 1995; Crismore et al 1993; Vande Kopple 1985) have established the use of Metadiscourse (MD) as an essential element in writing as it allows the writer to create a dialogic space with his readers. In recent years, attempts have been made to analyse MD through the use of text corpus with the help of computer technology especially when the corpus is large. In this investigation, data have been obtained through an electronic means to illustrate the use of MD in writing samples of a group of Malaysian undergraduates. In order to investigate the use of MD by these students, their writing was benched against an established standard, the open access BAWE corpus, available online. The MD features were analysed through the concordancing software, monoConc Pro 2.2, for this research. The paper demonstrates how the software manages the data to reveal patterns of use between writers of the two corpora. The paper concludes on initial insights obtained from the comparison to show the nature and manner of MD between standard proficient writing(extract from BAWE corpus) and evolving student writing at the tertiary level that would have implications for writing improvement in educational institutions

Guangzhou Buyers Preference for Premium Hawaiian Grown Product Gift Baskets

Guangzhou buyers' preference for premium Hawaiian grown product gift baskets with conjoint analysis was examined. Relative importance of three gift basket attributes: container type, products origin, and price were examined. Expenditure equivalent index to evaluate how much more each of the gift basket attributes is worth to the buyer was estimated. Main conclusions are: products have to be 'made in Hawaii' to receive the premium price; business buyers are generally less willing to pay a high price; and individual buyers are more willing to pay the higher priced Koa gift basket.Chinese survey data, conjoint analysis, buyer preference, Hawaii gift baskets, Demand and Price Analysis,

Culture and rapport promotion in service encounters: protecting the ties that bind

The present study aimed at investigating possible cultural effects on the perceived importance of interactional concerns in service encounters. Individual values were examined to establish an explanatory framework for any effects that might emerge. Hong Kong Chinese and Filipinos participated in the present study by rating the importance of 12 interactional concerns in five hypothetical scenarios involving service provision. “Rapport promotion” was the only consistent factor of interactional concerns to emerge from the five scenarios in each of the two cultural groups. The dimensions of individual values, labeled “Conservation” and “Self-Transcendence” by Schwartz (1992), significantly predicted a respondent’s level of rapport promotion across all scenarios, with self-transcendence partially unpackaging the cultural difference that emerged in one of the service scenarios. We use these results to support a model of communication in service provision that predicts communication concerns as arising from cultural socialization for personal characteristics and situational features of the encounter, leading to the petitioner’s being more dependent on the good will of the service provider

Genome-wide DNA-(de)methylation is associated with Noninfectious Bud-failure exhibition in Almond (Prunus dulcis [Mill.] D.A.Webb).

Noninfectious bud-failure (BF) remains a major threat to almond production in California, particularly with the recent rapid expansion of acreage and as more intensive cultural practices and modern cultivars are adopted. BF has been shown to be inherited in both vegetative and sexual progeny, with exhibition related to the age and propagation history of scion clonal sources. These characteristics suggest an epigenetic influence, such as the loss of juvenility mediated by DNA-(de)methylation. Various degrees of BF have been reported among cultivars as well as within sources of clonal propagation of the same cultivar. Genome-wide methylation profiles for different clones within almond genotypes were developed to examine their association with BF levels and association with the chronological time from initial propagation. The degree of BF exhibition was found to be associated with DNA-(de)methylation and clonal age, which suggests that epigenetic changes associated with ageing may be involved in the differential exhibition of BF within and among almond clones. Research is needed to investigate the potential of DNA-(de)methylation status as a predictor for BF as well as for effective strategies to improve clonal selection against age related deterioration. This is the first report of an epigenetic-related disorder threatening a major tree crop

Models of Care for musculoskeletal health: Moving towards meaningful implementation and evaluation across conditions and care settings

Models of Care (MoCs) are increasingly recognised as a system-level enabler to translate evidence for ‘what works’ into policy and, ultimately, clinical practice. MoCs provide a platform for a reform agenda in health systems by describing not only what care to deliver but also how to deliver it. Given the enormous burden of disease associated with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, system-level (macro) reform is needed to drive downstream improvements in MSK healthcare – at the health service (meso) level and at the clinical interface (micro) level. A key challenge in achieving improvements in MSK healthcare is sustainable implementation of reform initiatives, whether they be macro, meso or micro level in scope. In this chapter, we introduce the special issue of the Journal dedicated to implementation of MSK MoCs. We provide a contextual background on MoCs, a synthesis of implementation approaches across care settings covered across the chapters in this themed issued, and perspectives on the evaluation of MoCs

Interpersonal-driven features in research article abstracts: cross-disciplinary metadiscoursal perspective

Being a specific communicative genre of disseminating knowledge in today's academic arena, the research article abstract has its own specific conventional structure. Through such a seminal genre, research article writers are able to ratify and contribute their own new findings to the research community they belong to. Taking a cross-disciplinary quantitative approach, this study explores the status of interactional metadiscourse markers as prevalent interpersonal-driven features in research article abstracts. The central objective is to investigate how research article writers in particular discipline tackle and deploy interactional metadiscourse markers in the abstract section of their papers in the effort to propagate their ideas. Hyland's (2005) taxonomy of metadiscourse was adopted to analyse sixty research article abstracts written in two disciplines (Applied Linguistics and Economics) sourced from discipline-specific journals. As found, variations across the two fields of knowledge studied were enormously marked. Results of the present research may be of help for research article writers, particularly novice writers, to learn more about the socio-rhetorical conventions and prevalent discursive strategies established in their own specific disciplinary community