Improving English as a Second Language Learners’ Attitudes to Pronunciation through Motivation

Pronunciation is an important aspect of English learning. It is however one of the most abandoned or half taught. This is usually due to perceived difficulty in its teaching and learning. Hence, unfavorable attitudes set in, especially in English as a second language situation. In most cases, due to poor technique and methodology employed by the teachers of English, the students are not encouraged to learn pronunciation like other aspects of the subject. This attitude goes a very long way in determining their communicative competence as poor pronunciation could lead a breakdown in communication. It is thus the responsibility of the teachers to help the students learn. This paper thus advocates and presents some motivational strategies that could be employed by the teachers of English to improve the learners’ attitude to learning pronunciation in English as a second language classroom

File Search with Query Expansion in a Network System(s)

The amount of information in the Internet is growing fast; Searching for information has become an important issue; however the user queries impact the effectiveness of retrieving information that users need. The objective of Query Expansion is to find additional and more relevant results. This article used different similarity measures (Cosine, Jaccard, Dice similarity functions) in VSM on three Genetic Algorithm approaches, each similarity function used as fitness function, one point crossover and new selection method based on rank selection is used. The NSC (National Science Council, Taiwan) document data collection is used in this study. Our results show that QE methods increase the precision rates and the recall rates of information retrieval for dealing with document retrieval . Also we present a network system that consists of many servers to decrease the amount of workload from Main server. Keywords: information retrieval, vector space model, similarity measures, genetic algorithm, query expansion

Effect of Web-Based Activities on the Malaysian Students’ Vocabulary Acquisition Performance

Vocabulary acquisition is an important aspect of second language learning. It aids communication and comprehension. Teachers are thus expected to invent very effective means of teaching this vital component to the learners. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate the possible effect of using web-based activities to teach vocabulary on the vocabulary acquisition performance of the students. Forty pupils were selected for the study and were exposed to web-activities. The study made use of pre and posttests to examine whether there were any changes in the performance of the students. It was found out the used of web-based activities really influenced their performance as all the respondents had scores higher than in the pretest situation. It could then be held that it is imperative that teachers of English harness all creative ways of ensuring that students are assisted to learn effectively and one of such ways is employing technology

Developing an online facilities reservation system / Mohd Noor Ameen Mohd Surijo

Online Facilities Reservation System (OFRS) is one of the E-Office modules for FTMSK. OFRS refers to entities that provide services for an individual to have access to FTMSK's facilities information via an electronic medium such as Internet, Intranet and direct connection. The facilities reservation module allows the individuals to hire out computer lab, lecture rooms, meeting rooms and/or other facilities. The development of OFRS can improve the efficiency and accuracy of room and equipment processes for FTMSK's academicians. This development used OpenACS web application framework as project development framework and Application Framework Development Process as project methodology. As a result. Online Facilities Reservation System (OFRS) has been developed

The Development Of High Temperature Recirculating Pump (HTRP) For Energy Savings In An Incinerator.

Tremendous increase in generation of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) has become a major concern for the Ma-laysian government as the country experiencing rapid development. It was estimated about 16000 tones/day MSW is produced at national level and in Kuala Lumpur alone about 2500 tones/day

Helping engineering students in Malaysia develop positive attitudes towards learning English as a second language

Language, identity and attitudes are importantly interwoven concepts. While the role of language cannot be over emphasised especially in multilingual society like Malaysia thereby giving rise to diglossia, we cannot deny that our attempts to uphold a (our) particular linguistic identity also plays a significant role in the politics of language education. All this invariably tells on our attitudes; towards a linguistic community, towards language in general, towards a particular language and even towards our own (native) language. The consequence of this has been a dismal linguistic as well as academic performance of students. Since language is the vehicle through which they are to convey whatever it is they might have learnt, it thus becomes challenging and difficult due to inherent attitudinal issue. This is particularly worrisome considering the attitudes of engineering and generally science-based students to English who, besides the general attitudes arising from their individual loyalty to their respective mother tongues, usually do not see any nexus between their learning English and their future plans. The desire of this paper therefore was highlighting the role of attitudes in learning English as a second language with reference to the engineering students in Malaysia. Lastly, the paper gave some practical strategies for students, teachers, parents, and the schools at large to help ignite positive attitudes of the students towards learning English with a view to improving their overall performance

A Survey on the Use of Plastic versus Biodegradable Bottles for Drinking Water Packaging in the United Arab Emirates

Due to intensive utilization and extensive production, plastic waste is becoming a serious threat to the environment and human health. The situation is even worse in countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where single-use plastic water bottles add to the load of plastic pollution. The main objective of this survey was to assess the extent of bottled water utilization by the UAE residents and their awareness of the environmental concerns arising from single-use plastic bottles. The aim was also to evaluate their willingness to shift towards using biodegradable plastic bottles. This study involved the feedback of 2589 respondents living in the UAE. The eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) was applied to determine the most responsible variables explaining the variability of our data set. A chi-square analysis was also used to determine the significance among the responses. Most of the respondents to this survey were UAE nationals (79.8%) of ages ranging from 21 to 35 years (42%), who were educated, with most holding a university degree (69.6%). Regardless of their gender, age, occupation, education, and income, a large group of respondents (40.7%) was concerned about the impact of their purchased items on the environment; however, the frequency of plastic products recycled was observed to be low (49.7%). According to the findings of this survey, 42.4% of the respondents were likely to purchase 100% biodegradable bottles, and about 70% of the respondents expressed a willingness to spend at least AED 1 more for purchasing 100% biodegradable bottles

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家族看護学が看護の専門領域として確立され発展していくため,今後の研究の方向性を明らかにしたいと,国内外の家族および家族看護学に関する文献の数量的動向と研究領域別文献概観を行った結果,国内外ともに家族,家族の健康,家族援助に関する研究報告は増加傾向にあり,家族への関心の高まりと実践上の必要性が反映されていた。また,わが国では高齢化社会における家族援助の要求が家族看護学の確立を促していること,今後は家族を対象とした評価方法の開発や援助に関する予防的・実践的研究が求められていることが示唆された。The review of the literature on family nursing through numerical trend and research fields was done to know how to establish and develop nursing specialty in this area. The followings were suggested. 1) The researches concerning family, family health, and family practice were increasing in both inside and outside of Japan. 2) ln U. S. A., family nursing was developed in the field of maternal-child and psychiatric nursing, introducing family system theory. In Japan family nursing is rather essential in the field of home care for the aeed, due to aging population. 3) Further researches on development of assessment tool, intervention and social support are necessary, especially by preventive and practical points of view

継承語年少学習者と第二言語学習者 : ロシア語教育の方法

<p>(G1) (Normal control group); (G2) (Ulcer control group); (G3) (Omeprazole); (G4) (62.5 mg/kg), (G5) (125 mg/kg), (G6) (250 mg/kg) and (G7) (500 mg/kg) of <i>V</i>. <i>pubescens</i> extract. HSP70 protein was over-expressed in rats pre-treated with omeprazole or <i>V</i>. <i>pubescens</i> extract (brown color shows over-expression of HSP70 protein) (magnification 20×). There were 6 rats in each group of experiment. The Image J program was used to evaluate protein expression. All values are expressed as the means ± the standard error of mean. The mean difference was significant at the <i>p < 0</i>.<i>05</i> level compared to the cancer control group.</p

Palm Oil Clinker as a Waste by-Product: Utilization and Circular Economy Potential

Conservation of natural resources to create ecological balance could be significantly improved by substituting them with waste by-products. Palm oil industry operations increases annually, thereby generating huge quantity of waste to be dumped into the landfill. Palm oil clinker (POC) is a solid waste by-product produced in one of the oil palm processing phases. This chapter is designed to highlight the generation, disposal problems, properties and composition of POC. The waste to resource potentials of POC would be greatly discussed in the chapter starting with the application of POC in conventional and geopolymer structural elements such as beams, slabs, columns made of either concrete, mortar or paste for coarse aggregates, sand and cement replacement. Aspects such as performance of POC in wastewater treatment processes, fine aggregate and cement replacement in asphaltic and bituminous mixtures during highway construction, a bio-filler in coatings for steel manufacturing processes and a catalyst during energy generation would also be discussed. Circular economy potentials, risk assessment and leaching behavior during POC utilization would be evaluated. The chapter also discusses the effectiveness of POC in soil stabilization and the effect of POC pretreatment for performance enhancement. Towards an efficient utilization, it is important to carry out technical and economic studies, as well as life cycle assessments, in order to compare all the POC areas of application described in the present review article. POC powder has proven to be pozzolanic with maximum values of 17, 53.7, 0.92, 3.87, 1.46, for CaO, SiO2, SO3, Fe2O3 and Al2O3. Therefore, the present chapter would inspire researchers to find research gaps that will aid the sustainable use of agroindustry wastes. The fundamental knowledge contained in the chapter could also serve as a wake-up call for researchers that will motivate them to explore the high potential of utilizing POC for greater environmental benefits associated with less cost when compared with conventional materials