Search results

This paper, which originates in an English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classroom activity in Hong Kong, aims to explore English learners’ expressive and creative potential in writing by studying their work in the literary narrative genre.

A group of upper secondary students (15-16 years of age) with limited English resources and competence was enlisted to remake a folktale with visual and written prompts.

The writing samples demonstrate that these low-level EFL writers are able to refashion the narrative elements, and to communicate meanings for their own purposes. They exhibit logicality and problem-solving skills in their attempts to challenge and transform idea and to include themes of interest to them. There is also evidence of creative play with language in their use of dialogues and figures of speech.

These writing outcomes suggest the need to re-vision English language arts practices in increasingly diverse education systems. Genre-based instruction, with its emphasis on “writing to mean” as a social activity supported by learning to use language, could lead to widening EFL learners’ access to genre knowledge and to greater life chances.

A linguistics-based pedagogy scaffolding less able EFL writers while they learn to build effective narratives is identified as a way forward.

Although the idea of using narratives to engage EFL learners in writing is not entirely new, this paper contributes to the field by responding to low-level learners’ writing that goes beyond linguistic “correctness”, and developing strategies for supporting creativity and language play.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Accompanying the casino liberalization in Macau has been the massive increase in the importation of migrant workers to drive the labour-intensive, service-oriented economic growth there. Nevertheless, the employment of migrant workers has become an intensely contentious issue. The traditional pluralist approach to migration policy has highlighted a mismatch between restrictive policy pronouncements and actual expansive outcomes. This mismatch has resonated strongly in Macau, where the number of migrant workers skyrocketed in the last decade in spite of repeated guarantees from the government of the adoption of a protectionist labour policy. The pluralist approach has attributed the mismatch to strong constituencies supporting more immigration. The purpose of this paper is to dispute this and maintain that the Macau Government is a capitalist state committed to increasing labour importation to facilitate wealth accumulation.

The paper uses a qualitative approach based on extensive research of news and media reports, facilitated by a close observation of political developments.

The Macau Government started, in 2005, to talk about reforming its labour importation programme by adding a migrant worker levy, a ratio mechanism and a six-month waiting period. This paper investigates how the capitalist state navigated the reform process by promising changes and building consent with the working classes. The author maintains that “a game of protection” has been constructed and played to secure the consent of the local working classes for the migrant worker programme.

Very little literature is available that has studied the changes made to the migrant worker system in Macau. This paper will help to close this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the historical and social contexts for the three protests in Macau in the Summer of 2014, while examining the popular discourse of the protests. These include simultaneous eruptions toward immediate issues, the political apathy of Macau residents and Castell’s model of “networked social networks.” It also discusses the competition for youth after the protests.

This paper first reviews the history of Macau, in particular the people’s struggle against corruption and privilege, and its little-discussed history of protest. Its innovation in communications, political structure and education development are also explained to illustrate the foundations which make possible protests against an obsolete social structure.

The author finds that the history of Macau since the nineteenth century does not lack protests, with goals ranging from protests against colonialism to national and local demands. Macau youth are now more able and willing to mobilize themselves to make demands on the administration, and activists find it necessary to pass down such experience for generations to come.

The paper deconstructs the traditional image of Macau’s politics, by appealing to the linkage between continuity and contemporary events, and calls for the reader’s attention toward its social activism.

The Communist revolution in China has led to the appearance in this country of increasing numbers of Chinese books in Russian translation. The Chinese names in Cyrillic transcription have presented many librarians and students with a new problem, that of identifying the Cyrillic form of a name with the customary Wade‐Giles transcription. The average cataloguer, the first to meet the problem, has two obvious lines of action, and neither is satisfactory. He can save up the names until he has a chance to consult an expert in Chinese. Apart altogether from the delay, the expert, confronted with a few isolated names, might simply reply that he could do nothing without the Chinese characters, and it is only rarely that Soviet books supply them. Alternatively, he can transliterate the Cyrillic letters according to the system in use in his library and leave the matter there for fear of making bad worse. As long as the writers are not well known, he may feel only faintly uneasy; but the appearance of Chzhou Ėn‐lai (or Čžou En‐laj) upsets his equanimity. Obviously this must be entered under Chou; and we must have Mao Tse‐tung and not Mao Tsze‐dun, Ch'en Po‐ta and not Chėn' Bo‐da. But what happens when we have another . . . We can hardly write Ch'en unless we know how to represent the remaining elements in the name; yet we are loth to write Ch'en in one name and Chėn' in another.

This paper draws upon findings from a secondary analysis of suspected financial abuse cases in files of the Guardianship and Administration Tribunal in Queensland, Australia. The paper explores the association between formal and semi‐formal asset management arrangements and suspected financial abuse cases. The role of families as formal asset managers is also considered.

There are over 40,000 microcomputer software packages available in the market‐place today. This article explores some normative relationships between librarianship and computer software as intellectual works. A practical review of seven software directories (Datapro Directory of Microcomputer Software, List, The Software Catalog, PC Clearinghouse Software Directory, Apple Software 1984, IBM PC Expansion and Software Guide, IBM Software 1984) is performed. Directory features reviewed are indexes, entry composition, subject classifications, and coverage overlap.

Excellenzen meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren liebe Kollegen Es ist mir eine besondere Freude und Ehre, erstmals einen AIEST Kongress in der Sozialistischen Republik der Tschechoslowakei zu eröffnen und dies in der prächtigen Stadt Prag, der Hauptstadt und dem kulturellen und politischen Mittelpunkt. Die Stadt ist durch ihr reiches Erbe an kulturellen Gütern besonders für unsern 34. Kongress geeignet. Auf den berechtigten Wunsch der Organisatoren des diesjährigen Kongresses hin haben wir das Thema “Tourismus und architektonisches Erbe — kulturelle, rechtliche, wirtschaftliche und marketing‐orientierte Aspekte” gewählt.

This study aims to examine the disputable Shari’ah and the technical issues underlying the implementation of the Musharakah Mutanaqisah partnership (MMP) model in home financing by Islamic banks in Malaysia. It assesses whether this much-lauded facility is in line with Shari’ah rules and whether it diverges from or converges to the Bay’ Bithaman Ajil (BBA) and conventional loan models.

This study uses a qualitative methodology based on in-depth interviews to achieve these objectives.

With regard to the issue of convergence, it is obvious from the interviewees’ perceptions that the MMP model is converging with the BBA and conventional housing loans.

Many factors were mentioned as the reasons for this convergence, with the most important being that Islamic banks are not operating in a fully fledged Islamic financial system, reducing the risk weightage and regulatory restrictions. As for Shari’ah compliance, controversy may result from the enhanced features that structure this facility. Though these enhanced features are Shari’ah compliant, it transforms the MMP model into a debt rather than a partnership contract.

This study, using systematic literature review (SLR) aims to highlight and summarise current studies on the factors influencing customers’ Islamic home financing (IHF) selection and Islamic banking product preference, which has gained popularity within the banking sector over the past three decades. The SLR could map evolution and research fields, recommend a particular categorisation and determine primary issues to demonstrate current trends, future research directions and theoretical development.

The SLR was performed with a four-step reporting standard for the systematic evidence syntheses review method (research question formulation, systematic searching, quality assessment and data extraction) using 33 screened articles between 2008 and 2020 from two primary databases (Scopus and Web of Science) and one supporting database (Google Scholar).

The resulting factors could be categorised into four primary themes: consumer behaviour, consumer attributes, bank attributes and bank attributes (Islamic). The themes were subsequently divided into 16 sub-themes. Notably, all the factors proved essential for consumers’ evolving preferences and product competitiveness in the market.

This study encountered two limitations based on database selection and research period.

This SLR aimed to offer useful insights into the factors that should be prioritised by financial institutions for marketing approaches by investigating consumer behaviours.

This study pioneered an SLR on the study area for useful insights into the current research limitations and recommendations on future study directions. Specifically, the study method facilitated critical discussions and comparisons to past research outcomes and objectivity with triangulation from distinct perspectives.