As the economy takes off in Austria, voters remain torn between economic optimism and anti-immigration politics

With under two weeks left until the Austrian legislative election on 15 October, the centre-right People's Party (ÖVP), led by Sebastian Kurz, currently leads the opinion polls. Michael Burri writes that the refugee-centred campaign of Kurz has resonated with the public, allowing the ÖVP to counter the economic message emphasised by incumbent Chancellor Christian Kern. And while an improving economy may weakened anti-refugee politics since the peak of the refugee crisis in 2015, refugees still provide a powerful means through which to discuss national community and national destiny

Conducting Qualitative Longitudinal Research on Learning to Teach English Pronunciation: Challenges, Pitfalls…Coffee, and Bubbles!

Inquiries into the impact of second language teacher education on the development of teachers\u27 practices, beliefs, and knowledge have increased substantially in the last few years. However, most studies tend to investigate the process of second language teacher learning over a relatively short period of time, and only limited literature addresses methodological considerations in longitudinal research, making the design of this type of study potentially challenging for researchers. The aim of this paper is to first describe an ongoing project which explores the process of teachers learning to teach English pronunciation over a period of six years. Following an overview of the study design, five major challenges that I have faced while conducting the research project are discussed: (1) design issues; (2) access to teacher-participants; (3) time-related issues; (4) data management; and (5) personal involvement. Included in the discussion are methodological insights I have gained while carrying out the research and several navigational strategies I have used to overcome the aforementioned challenges. The purpose of providing this personal account is to shed light on my own experiences with navigating methodological challenges as a means of empowering researchers in designing and carrying out longitudinal research

Student Teachers’ Cognition about L2 Pronunciation Instruction: A Case Study

In view of the minimal attention pronunciation teacher preparation has received in second language (L2) teacher education, this study examined the cognition (i.e. beliefs, thoughts, attitudes and knowledge) development of 15 student teachers during a postgraduate subject on pronunciation pedagogy offered at an Australian tertiary institution. Findings revealed that, as a result of taking the subject, student teachers’ cognition shifted from teaching individual sounds (i.e. segmentals) to favouring a more balanced approach to pronunciation instruction. That is, teaching the melody of the English language (i.e. suprasegmentals) was seen as important as teaching segmentals. Non-native speakers’ self-perceived pronunciation improvement, an increase in their awareness of their spoken English, and native/non-native collaboration played critical roles in facilitating participants’ cognition growth. The findings also showed that cognition development is a complex process. The paper concludes with recommendations for preparing L2 teachers to teach English pronunciation in their classroom contexts

Student teachers\u27 cognition about L2 pronunciation instruction: a case study

In view of the minimal attention pronunciation teacher preparation has received in second language (L2) teacher education, this study examined the cognition (i.e. beliefs, thoughts, attitudes and knowledge) development of 15 student teachers during a postgraduate subject on pronunciation pedagogy offered at an Australian tertiary institution. Findings revealed that, as a result of taking the subject, student teachers\u27 cognition shifted from teaching individual sounds (i.e. segmentals) to favouring a more balanced approach to pronunciation instruction. That is, teaching the melody of the English language (i.e. suprasegmentals) was seen as important as teaching segmentals. Non-native speakers\u27 self-perceived pronunciation improvement, an increase in their awareness of their spoken English, and native/non-native collaboration played critical roles in facilitating participants\u27 cognition growth. The findings also showed that cognition development is a complex process. The paper concludes with recommendations for preparing L2 teachers to teach English pronunciation in their classroom contexts

Sampling-based Motion Planning for Active Multirotor System Identification

This paper reports on an algorithm for planning trajectories that allow a multirotor micro aerial vehicle (MAV) to quickly identify a set of unknown parameters. In many problems like self calibration or model parameter identification some states are only observable under a specific motion. These motions are often hard to find, especially for inexperienced users. Therefore, we consider system model identification in an active setting, where the vehicle autonomously decides what actions to take in order to quickly identify the model. Our algorithm approximates the belief dynamics of the system around a candidate trajectory using an extended Kalman filter (EKF). It uses sampling-based motion planning to explore the space of possible beliefs and find a maximally informative trajectory within a user-defined budget. We validate our method in simulation and on a real system showing the feasibility and repeatability of the proposed approach. Our planner creates trajectories which reduce model parameter convergence time and uncertainty by a factor of four.Comment: Published at ICRA 2017. Video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqrWbgep5

Feedback on Second Language Pronunciation: A Case Study of EAP Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices

In the modern English language classroom, Abstract: In the modern English language classroom, teachers are often faced with the challenging task of supporting students to achieve comprehensible pronunciation, but many teachers limit or neglect giving students feedback on their pronunciation for a variety of reasons. This paper examines the case of five experienced English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instructors who strive to provide feedback on specific features of pronunciation that negatively affect students’ comprehensibility. Results derived from semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews reveal that the teachers use similar approaches to select and provide feedback on problematic features of pronunciation. Naturally, these approaches sometimes differed to better suit their particular classroom needs. The paper concludes with a discussion of several practical solutions for providing corrective feedback and implications for teacher education programs

Visual-inertial self-calibration on informative motion segments

Environmental conditions and external effects, such as shocks, have a significant impact on the calibration parameters of visual-inertial sensor systems. Thus long-term operation of these systems cannot fully rely on factory calibration. Since the observability of certain parameters is highly dependent on the motion of the device, using short data segments at device initialization may yield poor results. When such systems are additionally subject to energy constraints, it is also infeasible to use full-batch approaches on a big dataset and careful selection of the data is of high importance. In this paper, we present a novel approach for resource efficient self-calibration of visual-inertial sensor systems. This is achieved by casting the calibration as a segment-based optimization problem that can be run on a small subset of informative segments. Consequently, the computational burden is limited as only a predefined number of segments is used. We also propose an efficient information-theoretic selection to identify such informative motion segments. In evaluations on a challenging dataset, we show our approach to significantly outperform state-of-the-art in terms of computational burden while maintaining a comparable accuracy

I feel my body moving and I hear the word : Using gesture-like movement to enhance productive word recall

Have you ever been in a situation where you just can\u27t quite think of the word you want to say? You know the word. Perhaps you\u27ve used the word many times before. But for some reason, on this occasion you just can\u27t recall and produce the precise word you want. It\u27s in your mind, you know it\u27s there, but it just won\u27t come out. This is a linguistic event which has been quite widely researched and is known as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Add to the mix the fact that you are learning a second language (L2) and need to navigate complex lexical networks to locate not only the item conveying precise meaning, but the one in your less efficient L2 lexical network. Then, imagine someone looking at you, waiting; waiting for you to say it (intelligibly), hanging on your every syllable. Sound frustrating? Well, you are not alone. Many L2 learners have voiced this exact frustration, but what can be done in the ESL classroom (and beyond) to facilitate the use of words in speech

“This side is the real world and the other one is like Minecraft” Using an almost wordless picture book to explore Japanese primary school students’ cultural awareness

English has been introduced as a core subject in primary schools across Asia over the past decade. Besides aiming to improve the English proficiency of Japanese primary school students, Japan’s recent reforms also mandate the development of children’s awareness of cultures other than their own. However, relatively little is known about pedagogical strategies to achieve cultural awareness in the Japanese primary school classroom. The objective of this study was, therefore, to utilize an almost wordless picture book and examine the ways children interpret stories about people from cultures other than their own. This study explored the independent meaning-making practices and processes of six Japanese primary school students as they viewed, without teacher intervention, Mirror, an Australian almost wordless picture book about the daily lives of an Australian and a Moroccan family. Interview and observation data provided insights into the children’s meaning-making processes and the ways they interpreted the messages within the stories that led to a range of understandings and misunderstandings across the cultures. The paper concludes with a discussion about pedagogical implications for supporting the development of cultural awareness, for challenging cultural stereotypes, and for facilitating English language learning processes