A Systematic review on the impact of peer education on self-care behaviors of patients

Introduction: One-of-a-kind education methods that are effective in facilitating and improving health and creating an appropriate learning environment are peer education. The peer is a person belonging to the same social group that people believe in terms of their ability to resemble themselves and can have powerful impacts on learning. Use their experiences to provide an educational program to other peers who are in trouble and yet they do not have the necessary skills in the care and control of symptoms associated with the disease. Can be helpful in controlling disease and controlling disease. This systematic review study was conducted to determine the effect of peer education on self-care behaviors in patients. Materials and Methods: In this systematic review Using articles published in the last 25 years on the impact of peer education on patient self-care behaviors. It was conducted in English and Persian by searching articles in search engines, authoritative scientific sites and databases SID, Google Scholar, Embase, Sciencedirect, PubMed, Springer. In the first stage, 39 articles were found. Of these, 10 articles related to the topic published in the last 25 years were reviewed. Results: In this study, aimed at the effect of peer education on self-care behaviors of patients, ten articles were reviewed, the results of one of them, sponsored by peers in the self-care of patients with diabetes, showed that peer education led to increased self-care, proper use of medications and reducing the need for insulin in the peer group is more than controlled.Conclusion: The study showed that peer education seems to be an effective method for reducing anxiety in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Therefore, it is recommended to use this educational approach in cardiac surgery to educate patients. Also, the effect of peer education on self-care behaviors in diabetic patients is significant. In addition to the impact of this type of training on the diseases studied in this study, this type of education can be effective in many other diseases as an effective way. Therefore, it is recommended to use this method in further research to reduce anxiety, improve self-care behaviors, and so on in patients

A systematic review on the impact of empowerment in improving self-care behaviors and some other factors in diabetic patients

Introduction: Traditional education seems to be sufficient in meeting the needs related to knowledge of patients, However, by recognizing the impact of psychosocial issues and the environment on patients 'behavior, educational techniques were used to change patients' behavior. And the education approach to diabetic patients has changed, as well as the theory and research on diabetes was introduced. And the focus of the capacity building approach to adapt treatment to self-efficacy and empowerment was changed. Empowerment is a collaborative approach to diabetes care and patient education. This systematic review was conducted with the aim of empowerment in improving self-care behaviors in diabetic patients. Materials and Methods: In order to achieve the aim of the study and to improve the accuracy of the study and its comprehensive understanding, this review study was conducted based on the Broome method. This method is carried out in three steps: searching for texts, evaluating data and analyzing data. So, in the search phase, postretrospective study texts are examined in four stages in terms of inclusion criteria. After obtaining the conditions for entry into the study, the content of the study is evaluated and at the end of the analysis of the data. Results: In this study, 12 articles were reviewed that showed that the empowerment approach of diabetic patients improves self-efficacy and self-care scores and reduces hemoglobin A1C, Improvement of general self-care behaviors, reduction of mean glycosylated hemoglobin and improvement of quality of life, blood glucose control, and so on. Conclusion: In researches done on the empowerment approach of diabetic patients, the importance of empowerment approach is confirmed by increasing control and self-care and improving some other factors in diabetic patients. Therefore, considering the importance of the concept of empowerment as an effective approach to supporting patients with diabetes, it is necessary to consider this approach in furtherresearch

Attention, Awareness, and Noticing in SLA: A Methodological Review

Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis (1990, 1994, 1995, 2001), which proposes that the process of noticing enables the conversion of input to intake, has been hugely influential and is now “regarded as a mainstream SLA construct” (Yoshioka, Frota, & Bergsleithner, 2013, p. 7). Early studies on noticing mainly involved the issue of whether attention or awareness— and what types—were necessary for L2 learning (Gass, 1997; Leow, 1997, 2000; Robinson, 1995; Schmidt, 1990; Tomlin & Vila, 1994). However, researchers have begun to note that it is important to ascertain how to operationalize and measure noticing for empirical testing (Philp, 2012). Given that L2 learners’ internal cognitive activities are neither directly measureable nor observable, the difficulty we face in measuring noticing is not surprising. Moreover, “the terms noticing, attention, and awareness have lacked in precision” (Gass, Behney, & Plonsky, 2013, p. 266) across studies, resulting in inconsistencies in the measures of noticing. To gain access to learners’ cognitive processes of noticing, online/concurrent measures (e.g., think-alouds, underlining) and off-line/non-concurrent measures (e.g., post-task questionnaires, pretest-posttest, stimulated recall) have been widely used in SLA

Interview With Dr. Luke Plonsky

Luke Plonsky is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University. His research interests include instructed second language acquisition, quantitative research methods with a specific focus on study designs, the use of statistics, research synthesis, and meta-analysis. He gave the keynote address at the Second Language Studies Symposium at Michigan State University. This interview was conducted on February 21, 2014. For more information about Dr. Plonsky, please visit his website: http://oak.ucc.nau.edu/ldp3/index.htm

Review of Reading Explorer 2

Reading Explorer is a six-level series of intensive reading texts and Reading Explorer 2 is one level in that series. It uses articles from National Geographic Magazine to promote reading comprehension and to develop the vocabulary skills of ESL young adults and adult learners. The length of the reading passages, vocabulary presented, level of difficulty of texts, and comprehension questions make Reading Explorer 2 a textbook suitable for learners whose proficiency ranges from upper-basic to low-intermediate. The textbook contains twelve units, and each unit has two reading passages whose topics are related. For instance, in lesson 4A students read about the “Grand Central Terminal” in Manhattan, and in lesson 4B they read about “Mumbai: City of Dreams.

Attention, Perception, and Production of the English Voiceless Interdental Fricative by Chinese Learners of English

For most English learners, a foreign accent has always been a difficulty that they cannot easily overcome. Numerous research studies have examined the reasons for this issue, and have attempted to help learners produce spoken English close to native speakers, if not possible to completely eliminate foreign accents. Among the difficulties learners encounter in acquiring native-like second language (L2) pronunciation, the voiceless interdental fricative (i.e., [θ]) has been considered one of the most difficult sounds to acquire by most English learners. Many studies have identified various substitutions for [θ] in the speaking production of learners with different first language (L1) backgrounds. For example, Rau, Chang, and Tarone (2009) reported that Thai, Russian, and Hungarian learners of English tended to substitute [t] for [θ], while [θ] was usually replaced with [s] by speakers from Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and China (Lee & Cho, 2002; Rau et al., 2009). In order to explore possible causes of these problematic performances, one plausible way is to seek the relation between learners’ perception and production because it is generally believed that there is a positive correlation between a speaker’s perception and production; accordingly, improvement in one part will facilitate the development of the other. However, perception alone by no means determines production. Yang (1997) indicated that speakers’ attention, an important factor involved in one’s cognitive process of a speaking activity, also influences speaker’s perception and production. The following literature review introduces relevant theories and studies that have contributed to this research topic

How do Foreign Language Teachers Maintain their Proficiency? A Grounded Theory Approach

The recent increase in studies using the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005) to investigate language teachers’ engagement (or lack thereof) in professional development (e.g., Hiver, 2013; Kubanyiova 2009; Kumazava, 2013) shows the increasing interest in bridging the research gap between language teacher education and teacher motivation. With the aim of contributing to this body of motivation research, this interview-based study uses a grounded theory approach to address the issues of how foreign language (FL) teachers in two types of Italian high schools (college preparation schools and vocational schools) experience and respond to changes in their proficiency. Findings show the influence of these pedagogical contexts on teachers’ proficiency and engagement in development as well as the dynamic complexity of motivational processes. When dealing with professional development, FL teachers face two main decision-making moments: 1) deciding whether or not to engage in professional development activities; 2) maintaining their engagement with or without a supportive community. Their decision to engage often depends on the emotional dissonance between teachers’ actual and possible L2 selves. The results have implications for designing in-service professional development courses with a bottom-up approach that take into consideration teachers’ needs according to their school environments and enhance teachers’ L2 selves’ emotional guiding power

Interview with Kim McDonough

Kim McDonough is an Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at Concordia University. She earned her M.A. in TESOL from Michigan State University and her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University. Her research interests include psycholinguistic approaches to second language acquisition, classroom-based acquisition research, usage-based approaches to acquisition, and task-based language teaching. She delivered a keynote speech at the 2014 Second Language Studies Symposium titled Using structural priming tasks in L2 classrooms, and kindly spared some time for this interview after her keynote address

Marked Theme in the Reading Comprehension of Advanced L2 English Learners

According to Barzegar (2013), the way we arrange words in different positions of the clause is essential to communicate in any language. In other words, word order is highly important when creating meaning. Second language learners usually aim to have a clear understanding of how and where to place words, so they can achieve successful communication in the target language. Kessler (2004) found that native speakers and advance language learners of English have a similar level of syntactical knowledge, especially in terms of word order. However, this word-order knowledge does not seem equally applied to different structures and languages. In this regard, Jin (2008) discovered that English speakers have much difficulty in learning marked structures in Chinese. Similarly, Solís Hernández (2006) demonstrated that L2 English learners usually struggle with structures that do not follow the same pattern at all times, especially in relation to adverb placement. She described that most students did not clearly understand the reasons why adverbs in English are placed in different positions of the clause. In my experience, I have noticed that small differences in clause constructions (e.g., “I saw him yesterday” and “Yesterday I saw him”), can be confusing to L2 learners. This is not only because of the syntactic order, but because sometimes it is difficult for learners to understand the reasons that have motivated a speaker or a writer to select a less common word order construction to communicate a specific message

Review of LEAP: Learning English for Academic Purposes (Reading and Writing)

LEAP: Learning English for Academic Purposes (Reading and Writing) is one book in Pearson’s series of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) for highintermediate and advanced learners. The book has eight chapters which cover topics in different fields, for example education, psychology, business, and biology. Each chapter deals with both reading and writing skills. A consistent format is adopted throughout all chapters, starting with an overview (that describes the objectives and features of the chapter), followed by a “Gearing –Up” activity (that aims to activate and build learners’ schema), reading (that intends to provide input), and writing (for language production). The book dedicates a separate part “Vocabulary Build” in each chapter to building learners’ awareness and repertoire of words having high usage frequency in the Academic Word List. It also includes other sections such as “Focus on Reading”, “Focus on Writing”, and “Academic Survival Skills” which provide explicit instructions on developing reading and writing skills in academic settings