The Effects of Literary Interpretation by a Teacher on EFL Students

Literary Interpretation is of prime importance in the field of literature studies. By contrast, literary interpretation is almost ignored in the field of English language education in Japan. This paper aims to fill the gap between the two fields. The research questions are as follows: RQ 1: What effects can literary interpretation by a teacher have on learners’ attitudes towards reading? RQ 2: What effects can literary interpretation by a teacher have on learners’ reading activities? To answer these questions, we conducted a survey in which 29 university students participated. We asked them to answer an identical questionnaire before and after they were provided with their teacher’s literary interpretation of “A Family Supper,” a short story by Kazuo Ishiguro. The questionnaire was made up of two parts: the first part, consisting of 10 items with a 6-point scale, tried to measure learners’ attitudes towards reading; in the second part, learners were asked to write freely about how they felt towards “A Family Supper.” The first and second parts were meant to be quantitative and qualitative research respectively. In the quantitative research, learners’ attitudes towards reading improved in 8 out of 10 items after their teacher interpreted the text. We conducted a paired t-test and found that in 7 out of those 8 items the improvement was statistically significant. In one of the 2 items in which their attitudes changed in a negative way, the change was statistically significant. The item asked the learners “whether they felt like reading forward or not.” So, the change might have been natural and could be explained like this: they had already grasped the storyline before they were given literary interpretation; in other words, by the time they answered the questionnaire for the second time, they had already lost interest in the plot. Our answer to RQ 1 is that literary interpretation contributes to enhancing learners’ attitudes towards reading. In the qualitative research, we first analyzed the comments the learners had written before they were given literary interpretation. Common to the comments were the following four points: (1) English used in “A Family Supper” is simple and easy to read; (2) Due to its linguistic simplicity, the text is not worth reading; (3) The story is not dramatic enough; (4) The text contains something mysterious but inexplicable. The effects of literary interpretation on these comments are as follows: (1) Comments on the content of the work took the place of those on linguistic simplicity; (2) Some learners noticed that, even if vocabulary and grammar were simple, English could be difficult to read; (3) Most of the learners came to recognize a deeper meaning hidden under the undramatic-looking story; (4) Intuitive insights into the mystery were acknowledged as reasonable. These four findings are our answer to RQ 2

Numerical Analysis of the Dislocation Density in Multicrystalline Silicon for Solar Cells by the Vertical Bridgman Process

We studied the effects of cooling process on the generation of dislocations in multicrystalline silicon grown by the vertical Bridgman process. From the temperature field obtained by a global model, the stress relaxation and multiplication of dislocations were calculated using the Haasen-Alexander-Sumino model. It was found that the multiplication of dislocations is higher in fast cooling processes. It was confirmed that residual stress is low at high temperatures because the movement of the dislocations relaxes the thermal strain, while the residual stress increases with decreasing temperature, because of reduced motion of dislocations and formation of a strain field at lower temperatures

Effects of Calcination Temperature and Acid-Base Properties on Mixed Potential Ammonia Sensors Modified by Metal Oxides

Mixed potential sensors were fabriated using yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as a solid electrolyte and a mixture of Au and various metal oxides as a sensing electrode. The effects of calcination temperature ranging from 600 to 1,000 °C and acid-base properties of the metal oxides on the sensing properties were examined. The selective sensing of ammonia was achieved by modification of the sensing electrode using MoO3, Bi2O3 and V2O5, while the use of WO3, Nb2O5 and MgO was not effective. The melting points of the former group were below 820 °C, while those of the latter group were higher than 1,000 °C. Among the former group, the selective sensing of ammonia was strongly dependent on the calcination temperature, which was optimum around melting point of the corresponding metal oxides. The good spreading of the metal oxides on the electrode is suggested to be one of the important factors. In the former group, the relative response of ammonia to propene was in the order of MoO3 > Bi2O3 > V2O5, which agreed well with the acidity of the metal oxides. The importance of the acidic properties of metal oxides for ammonia sensing was clarified

A nationwide, multi-center, retrospective study of symptomatic small bowel stricture in patients with Crohn\u27s disease.

BACKGROUND:Small bowel stricture is one of the most common complications in patients with Crohn\u27s disease (CD). Endoscopic balloon dilatation (EBD) is a minimally invasive treatment intended to avoid surgery; however, whether EBD prevents subsequent surgery remains unclear. We aimed to reveal the factors contributing to surgery in patients with small bowel stricture and the factors associated with subsequent surgery after initial EBD.METHODS:Data were retrospectively collected from surgically untreated CD patients who developed symptomatic small bowel stricture after 2008 when the use of balloon-assisted enteroscopy and maintenance therapy with anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) became available.RESULTS:A total of 305 cases from 32 tertiary referral centers were enrolled. Cumulative surgery-free survival was 74.0% at 1 year, 54.4% at 5 years, and 44.3% at 10 years. The factors associated with avoiding surgery were non-stricturing, non-penetrating disease at onset, mild severity of symptoms, successful EBD, stricture length < 2 cm, and immunomodulator or anti-TNF added after onset of obstructive symptoms. In 95 cases with successful initial EBD, longer EBD interval was associated with lower risk of surgery. Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that an EBD interval of ≤ 446 days predicted subsequent surgery, and the proportion of smokers was significantly high in patients who required frequent dilatation.CONCLUSIONS:In CD patients with symptomatic small bowel stricture, addition of immunomodulator or anti-TNF and smoking cessation may improve the outcome of symptomatic small bowel stricture, by avoiding frequent EBD and subsequent surgery after initial EBD