The Effects of Curriculum-Integrated Explicit Learning Strategy Instruction on Reading Comprehension for English as a Second Language (ESL) Learners at the Community College

Reading skills are critical for English as a Second Language (ESL) students in higher education to achieve academic success. However, effective ways to promote student success in ESL reading courses are under-researched. Identifying factors that may enhance the quality and outcomes of learning ESL reading is essential. One such factor identified by previous research is learning strategies. Explicit instruction on learning strategies may lessen the problems and difficulties that international students encounter. Explicit strategy instruction can bring a systematic scaffold into a language learning process, guide students toward proper learning strategies, and promote constructive cognitive processing during learning. This study aimed to examine how cognitive learning strategy intervention that explicitly models the use of learning strategies could facilitate English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ reading comprehension and change the perceptions of their reading skills. In this mixed-methods study, intact groups of 33 ESL community-college students enrolled in Reading and Writing II courses participated either in the learning strategy treatment group or the traditional instruction comparison group. Three cognitive learning strategies based on the theoretical framework of Mayer\u27s (2005, 2014) select-organize-integrate (SOI) model of generative learning were explicitly modeled and taught: strategy# I (finding the main idea and supporting details), strategy # II (mind mapping), and strategy # III (self-explaining). Differences in scores of reading comprehension tests pre-intervention and post-intervention were examined. Then an online survey and semi-structured individual interviews were conducted to explore how participants experienced the strategy intervention in terms of their awareness of the benefits of the learning strategy and the perceptions of their reading skills. Results indicated that the treatment group’s post-test scores compared to their pretest increased significantly with a large effect size. There was no statistically significant difference in the gain scores between the low and high proficiency students in the treatment group. Both low and high proficiency students increased their post-test scores, indicating strategy intervention was equally beneficial for low and high proficiency students. Furthermore, participants in the treatment group who underwent a six-session cognitive learning strategy intervention outperformed those who received no strategy intervention in the reading comprehension post-test. Qualitative data were coded and analyzed for emerging themes. Participants in the treatment group reported that learning strategy instruction helped them better comprehend, organize, summarize, and remember what they read; hence they could improve their reading comprehension skills. In addition, students’ perceptions of their reading skills changed positively. More specifically, students described their reading confidence, ability to focus on reading, and completing reading journal assignments were enhanced. Furthermore, participants acknowledged that they would continue to use the cognitive learning strategies after the strategy intervention ended. The most helpful strategy the participants opted for was mind mapping. These findings suggest a great opportunity to integrate the learning strategy instruction into regular ESL language courses

Teaching EFL/ESL College-level Learners through Current Global Topics: Integrated Lessons for EFL/ESL Teachers

The importance of educating effective English users competent in communicating and interacting in a variety of social settings is highlighted in today’s highly globalized world. Being able to understand and discuss complex global topics related to current cultural, social, and business issues and events has become an integral skill of English learners to achieve greater international connectivity. Unfortunately, many EFL/ESL college-level students, specifically Korean EFL students, do not seem to have sufficient preparation to build English communicative competence and cultural awareness necessary to cope with various situations in which they need to communicate meaningfully and purposefully as effective English users. The purpose of this project, which is grounded in theoretical frameworks of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and the Participatory Approach, is to address that there is a need to bring inspiring and meaningful real-world topics into English language teaching to enhance students’ communication skills. This field project is in the form of a handbook which consists of the three sample units of curriculum. Each unit offers teachers a detailed example of how to teach the current global topics to students through the integrated lessons of listening, reading, speaking, and writing, allowing teachers to explore teaching ideas, resources, and activities around the global topics. All in all, this project provides teachers with a wealth of content and themes which will spark students’ interests and engagement by incorporating a variety of meaningful global topics related to current cultural, social, business, and world issues and events around the globe. Incorporating current global topics in English language teaching (ELT) is an important facilitating factor in the acquisition of English as a means of global communication necessary to thrive in this rapidly globalized and highly interconnected world

Virginia Sorensen

“If you burrow for roots, it was the fault of my grandmother,” the protagonist of Virginia Sorensen’s novel The Man with the Key remarks. And although we must ignore the half-ironic reference to a fault—and remind ourselves that an author’s characters are not the author—this metaphor is an exact image of Virginia Sorensen’s world and of her works. Sorensen has published eight novels, most of them about the American West, as well as a number of short stories and a group of children’s books. Her roots are the very essence of almost all, and certainly of the best, of her writing—roots that stirred her creative imagination. They are roots deep in a richly complex and yet somehow simple and clear childhood as a believing member of a peculiar people,” to use their own phrase. Her people are the Mormons or, more formally, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and the center of their world is Utah

Rapid microwave-assisted CNBr cleavage of bead-bound peptides

Large libraries of peptides, cyclic peptides, and other molecules are standard tools for the discovery of drugs, molecular probes, and affinity reagents. In particular, one-bead-one-compound (OBOC) libraries,(1) prepared by the split-and-mix method,(2) provide access to a broad chemical space with a minimum of reagents. Once such a library has been screened against the target of interest, the chemical identity of the library elements on the hit beads is identified. For peptide libraries and their variants, mass spectrometry (MS) based peptide sequencing provides the most rapid method for such analysis. OBOC libraries are constructed in a number of ways to facilitate MS analysis,(3-5) but one common feature is that the peptide must be cleaved from the bead prior to being introduced into the mass spectrometer. While a number of chemical(6) and photochemical(7) cleavage strategies have been developed, the most common strategy is to incorporate a CNBr-cleavable methionine-linker group at the C-terminus of the peptide.(8) CNBr cleavage has also been widely used in proteomics to cleave proteins.(9) With such chemistry, up to 100 beads from an OBOC peptide library can be sequenced in a 24 h period.(10) A large fraction of that time, however, is devoted to the CNBr cleavage step. Standard literature protocols describe CNBr cleavage as requiring between 12 and 24 h, using 20−30 μL of 0.25 M CNBr in 70% aqueous formic acid at room temperature.(11) Although the CNBr cleavage time may be reduced to 2−4 h at elevated temperatures (47 °C), significant side-products may be generated.(12) All reports that we have found that describe CNBr cleavage chemistry from single beads have used the same conditions as for proteomics, although the two chemical processes are not necessarily equivalent

Corporate Social Responsibility Activities: Appropriability and Impact on Social Performance

To explore strategic aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR), this paper examines the impact of CSR activities on corporate social performance (CSP). Drawing from and synthezing two literatures, the well-known instrumental/strategic stakeholder theory and research on CSR strategic value criteria (Burke and Logsden, 1996), we conceptualize appropriability as a variable intermediating between a firm’s CSR activities and its CSP. We suggest that two considerations shape appropriability in the context of corporate social performance: 1) the extent to which social actions go beyond legal requirements and dominant social norms (voluntarism and proactivity) and, 2) the coherence of stakeholder groups’ interest aggregation and articulation. We hypothesize a clear positive connection between investment in corporate social activities and CSP where appropriability is high. Our second conceptual contribution is to categorize CSR activities as performance-oriented and learning/information acquisition-oriented. Where appropriability is low, we expect activities will be learning/information acquisition-oriented and the association between corporate social activity and CSP negative. In preliminary statistical tests we find empirical support for the value of developing the appropriability concept in research on corporate social activity and corporate social performance and further exploring the differences between performance-oriented and learning-oriented corporate social activities

Guttate leukoderma and acrokeratosis verruciformis of Hopf: a rare combination in Darier disease

A distinct Darier phenotype presenting with confetti-like hypopigmented macules was first described in 1965. Designated as "guttate leukoderma," this skin finding is a rarely-reported presentation of Darier disease. It has been theorized that the mutation in ATP2A2 causes defective E-cadherin, which in turn disrupts the adhesion of melanocytes to keratinocytes, thus leading to impaired dendrite formation, hindered melanin transfer, and ultimately to melanocyte apoptosis. Herein, we contribute a case of a 56-year old woman who presented with the rarely-described guttate leukoderma of Darier disease and acrokeratosis verruciformis of Hopf

A middleware for a large array of cameras

Large arrays of cameras are increasingly being employed for producing high quality image sequences needed for motion analysis research. This leads to the logistical problem with coordination and control of a large number of cameras. In this paper, we used a lightweight multi-agent system for coordinating such camera arrays. The agent framework provides more than a remote sensor access API. It allows reconfigurable and transparent access to cameras, as well as software agents capable of intelligent processing. Furthermore, it eases maintenance by encouraging code reuse. Additionally, our agent system includes an automatic discovery mechanism at startup, and multiple language bindings. Performance tests showed the lightweight nature of the framework while validating its correctness and scalability. Two different camera agents were implemented to provide access to a large array of distributed cameras. Correct operation of these camera agents was confirmed via several image processing agents