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Deep learning (DL) technology is used to design a voice evaluation system to understand the impact of learning aids on DL and mobile platforms on students’ learning behavior.
Abstract
Purpose
Deep learning (DL) technology is used to design a voice evaluation system to understand the impact of learning aids on DL and mobile platforms on students’ learning behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
DL technology is used to design a speech evaluation system.
Findings
The experimental results show that the speech evaluation system designed has a high accuracy rate, the highest agreement rate with manual evaluation of pronunciation is 89.5%, and the correct speech recognition rate is 96.64%. The designed voice evaluation system and the manual voice rating system have a maximum error rate of 2%. The experimental results suggest that it is necessary to further optimize the learning aids for mobile platform. The learning aids of the mobile platform need to be further optimized to promote the improvement of student learning efficiency.
Originality/value
The results show that the speech evaluation system designed has good practical application value, and it provides a certain reference value for the future study of learning tools on DL.
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Sharon Mallon, Chris Richards and Andy Rixon
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about rapid changes in higher education (HE) pedagogies, with universities adding online options to their core face to face offering…
Abstract
Purpose
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about rapid changes in higher education (HE) pedagogies, with universities adding online options to their core face to face offering. The use of technology to facilitate learning has been a mainstay in traditional distance education settings. The paper aims to understand student and teacher experience of synchronous online learning in HE to develop practice and assist those newly coming to online teaching.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a ‘rapid review’ of articles related to this topic over the last 21 years. Thematic analysis of the 61 studies identified for inclusion were; Use of technology, planned pedagogy, comparison of synchronous and asynchronous learning, relationships online, teacher and student attitudes, COVID-19 reflections.
Findings
This study’s findings show many studies examined the transition from classroom to online learning, rather than the experience of being online. Building a community of learning, with interaction between all parties, was central to success in the development of an approach to online synchronous teaching.
Research limitations/implications
Few of the early papers included here expressly explored student and teacher experiences of synchronous learning. Instead, they broadly discussed blended learning, or compared functionality and effectiveness of online teaching, with traditional in person or offline/asynchronous alternatives. An additional drawback was that educators were frequently involved in studies which investigated the experiences of their own students.
Originality/value
This study is one of the few to focus on the experience of staff and students in the online synchronous environment. The results show there is scope to achieve improvement in online learning, through research focussed on how students, lecturers and institutional administrators adapt to the new normal.
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Daniel Sidney Fussy and Hassan Iddy
This study aims to explore motives behind teachers' and students' use of translanguaging and how they use it in Tanzanian public secondary school classrooms.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore motives behind teachers' and students' use of translanguaging and how they use it in Tanzanian public secondary school classrooms.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected using interviews and non-participant observations.
Findings
The findings indicate that translanguaging was used to facilitate content comprehension, promote classroom interaction and increase students' motivation to learn. Translanguaging was implemented using three strategies: paraphrasing an English text into Kiswahili, translating an English text into its Kiswahili equivalent and word-level translanguaging.
Practical implications
By highlighting the motivations for translanguaging and corresponding strategies associated with translanguaging pedagogy in the Tanzanian context, this study has significant practical implications for teachers and students to showcase their linguistic and multimodal knowledge, while fostering a safe learning space that relates to students' daily experiences.
Originality/value
The study offers new insights into previous research on the role of language-supportive pedagogy appropriate for teachers and students working within bi-/multilingual education settings.
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Ana Jovanović, Ana Kojadinović and Alexandra Portmann
In this chapter, we share narratives from our personal experiences with a shared focus on the relationships between personal identities and family language. The acquisition of a…
Abstract
In this chapter, we share narratives from our personal experiences with a shared focus on the relationships between personal identities and family language. The acquisition of a family language is said to be accompanied by a specific ‘intercultural burden’ (Kagan 2012), which is manifested at the intersection of different influences and psychological tensions. This psychosocial and cultural reality has the potential for the development of a true intercultural identity that brings together contradictions and conflicts of inherited cultural differences. Here, through a prism of three personal narratives, we create a series of questions and reflections in relation to the family language. The three voices are articulated through three auto-ethnographic accounts of individuals – two linguists and a theatre scholar who are both personally and professionally invested in the topic of post-migration. The common thread of the three narratives is the experience of Serbian as the first language. As an aspect of personal identity, the idealised concept of family language affects one's identity and makes a decisive impact on investment and potentially life-defining decisions.
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This chapter explores how critical language theory could be applied to the language dynamics in higher education that is created by internationalization and university's…
Abstract
This chapter explores how critical language theory could be applied to the language dynamics in higher education that is created by internationalization and university's traditional role in maintaining national languages. Language policy is an instrument of governance that is increasingly used to regulate the linguistic situation at the university, so it is at the center of my analysis. As a broad concept, language policy is not limited to the formulations of the policy text but includes interactions of different actors and addresses instruments mediating the university's linguistic situation. A critical approach highlights that language policy is permeated with power, which is unequally distributed between different actors. I suggest further conceptualization of the language dynamics of the internationalized university created by national language protection and internationalization through three layers of analysis. The first layer derives from the Bourdieu's approach to language in society focusing on the societal hierarchies that are underpinned by language use. It also includes a discussion about structure versus agency, and a conversation about the navigational capacities of individuals to challenge preestablished social structures. The second layer discusses dialogue as a theoretical approach to the process of negotiating language policy. This is where agency is being realized, depending on the relative power of different actors in the particular social context. The third layer explores the conception of language, how different ways to understand what language is are turned into policy principles.
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Gema Bueno de la Fuente, Carmen Agustín-Lacruz, Mariângela Spotti Lopes Fujita and Ana Lúcia Terra
The purpose of this study is to analyse the recommendations on knowledge organisation from guidelines, policies and procedure manuals of a sample of institutional repositories and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyse the recommendations on knowledge organisation from guidelines, policies and procedure manuals of a sample of institutional repositories and networks within the Latin American area and observe the level of follow-up of international guidelines.
Design/methodology/approach
Presented is an exploratory and descriptive study of repositories’ professional documents. This study comprised four steps: definition of convenience sample; development of data codebook; coding of data; and analysis of data and conclusions drawing. The convenience sample includes representative sources at three levels: local institutional repositories, national aggregators and international network and aggregators. The codebook gathers information from the repositories’ sample, such as institutional rules and procedure manuals openly available, or recommendations on the use of controlled vocabularies.
Findings
The results indicate that at the local repository level, the use of controlled vocabularies is not regulated, leaving the choice of terms to the authors’ discretion. It results in a set of unstructured keywords, not standardised terms, mixing subject terms with other authorities on persons, institutions or places. National aggregators do not regulate these issues either and limit to pointing to international guidelines and policies, which simply recommend the use of controlled vocabularies, using URIs to facilitate interoperability.
Originality/value
The originality of this study lies in identifying how the principles of knowledge organisation are effectively applied by institutional repositories, at local, national and international levels.
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This study aims to explore the perceptions of language learners and instructors on using augmented reality (AR) in a hybrid learning environment.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the perceptions of language learners and instructors on using augmented reality (AR) in a hybrid learning environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Mixed-method research design was used to elicit information from 62 participants on the study’s objective. Data were collected and analyzed to examine the participants’ views on using AR in language teaching in a hybrid environment.
Findings
This study unveils that while most studies acknowledge AR as an effective instructional delivery, students and instructors perceive some setbacks. Other novel insights provided by this study reveal necessities to consider before implementing AR in classroom settings.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides insights into the widely reported effectiveness of AR in the English language-teaching domain. This study suggests that considering the dispositions of learners and instructors toward digitally enhanced learning, using AR without good teaching practices and approaches may not yield expected learning outcomes.
Originality/value
This study advances scientific knowledge on the use of AR in hybrid learning models by providing empirical evidence to show the perceived effectiveness of AR. It further provides a robust understanding of the pedagogical implications of using AR in classroom settings drawing from diverse lenses. This helps ensure that educational settings that integrate AR consider the novel findings of this study before such implementation.
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Maya Deori, Vinit Kumar and Manoj Kumar Verma
The purpose of the study is to evaluate certain characteristics of the videos of the software Koha and DSpace posted on YouTube. Since YouTube has the potential to provide the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to evaluate certain characteristics of the videos of the software Koha and DSpace posted on YouTube. Since YouTube has the potential to provide the content creator to share their knowledge and experience through their content which has become much more beneficial to the information seeker. Nowadays, people search for queries or tutorial videos on YouTube very often to earn a better understanding of the term. Sentiment analysis of the viewers' opinion of the videos is another purpose of this study.
Design/methodology/approach
Dataset for evaluating the characteristic of the videos of Koha and DSpace was extracted by using Webometric Analyst by creating YouTube API. Once retrieval of data was completed, a manual verification was enhanced to filter out spam videos unrelated to the scope. After the confirmation of authentic relatable videos, seeking the video's id as query, the comments per video were extracted using Webometric Analyst. For opinion mining, the Parallel Dots API web service was used in Google Sheets as an addon function. The sentiment, multilingual sentiment, emotion, intention and word frequency of the viewers' opinion was examined with the help of certain default functionalities.
Findings
Webometric Analyst extracted a total of 461 and 397 videos of Koha and DSpace, respectively, uploaded on the YouTube platform. The findings of the study indicate that the growth rate of videos on Koha is decreasing, while the number of videos uploaded on DSpace is gradually increased in the last 10 years. The highest number of videos posted in 1–20 min duration category with mostly high definition (HD) with standard YouTube license and prominently in the English language. The sentiment analysis of the total extracted comments on Koha and DSpace videos found to be 2043 and 862 comments, respectively, among whom “Positive” comments are mostly found and with “Happy” emotion can be highly detected with most supportive “Feedback” intention on both Koha and DSpace videos. The top word frequency signifies that the users of both the software are using the comments section of the videos on YouTube to ask and provide troubleshooting help to each other.
Research limitations/implications
The present study has some limitations too; the dataset for the study includes only those videos whose title, description or keywords sections had the query terms “Koha” or “DSpace” there are chances that some videos would have been left out from the dataset related to these software.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to evaluate the characteristics and sentiment of both the videos Koha and DSpace. Through this, the popularity, likeness and dislike and the impact of the contents of the videos uploaded will be disclosed, and creators can make an improvement by referring this, and the seekers will adapt to the use of correct and authentic information.
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Shu Fan, Shengyi Yao and Dan Wu
Culture is considered a critical aspect of social media usage. The purpose of this paper is to explore how cultures and languages influence multilingual users' cross-cultural…
Abstract
Purpose
Culture is considered a critical aspect of social media usage. The purpose of this paper is to explore how cultures and languages influence multilingual users' cross-cultural information sharing patterns.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a crowdsourcing survey with Amazon Mechanical Turk to collect qualitative and quantitative data from 355 multilingual users who utilize two or more languages daily. A mixed-method approach combined statistical, and cluster analysis with thematic analysis was employed to analyze information sharing patterns among multilingual users in the Chinese cultural context.
Findings
It was found that most multilingual users surveyed preferred to share in their first and second language mainly because that is what others around them speak or use. Multilingual users have more diverse sharing characteristics and are more actively engaged in social media. The results also provide insights into what incentives make multilingual users engage in social media to share information related to Chinese culture with the MOA model. Finally, the ten motivation factors include learning, entertainment, empathy, personal gain, social engagement, altruism, self-expression, information, trust and sharing culture. One opportunity factor is identified, which is convenience. Three ability factors are recognized consist of self-efficacy, habit and personality.
Originality/value
The findings are conducive to promoting the active participation of multilingual users in online communities, increasing global resource sharing and information flow and promoting the consumption of digital cultural content.
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Addisalem Tebikew Yallew and Paul Othusitse Dipitso
In an ever-interconnected world dominated by discourses on the internationalization and marketization of higher education, concerns related to language and employability have been…
Abstract
In an ever-interconnected world dominated by discourses on the internationalization and marketization of higher education, concerns related to language and employability have been the focus of recent debates. There is, however, a dearth of research investigating how these dimensions relate to one another in recent comparative and international higher education research. By focusing on how issues related to language and employability have been presented in recent higher education research worldwide, this chapter aims to contribute to our understanding of this concern. To achieve this goal, we conducted a scoping literature review using the Web of Science, Scopus, and the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) databases, considering the years 2011–2020. The findings, perhaps not surprisingly, suggested that language skills are perceived to be valued by both graduates and employers though the discussions predominantly focused on one language, English. The research focus on English for employability in Anglophone contexts is understandable. However, the fact that the trend is observed in contexts where the language is not the primary or official language seems to indicate the influence of internationalization of higher education and global labor markets primarily dominated by English. The literature also suggested that (English) language training in higher education programs needs to move from solely linguistic and qualification-related content areas to a broader sphere of English for communication purposes that cover both specialized disciplinary content and broader generic employability skills. Considering this finding, we suggest that higher education systems and institutions incorporate recent developments in English for occupational purposes in their curriculum. We also recommend that there needs to be a shift from the overwhelmingly English language-dominated discussions to more inclusive research that assesses the impact of other dominant languages on employability-related concerns.
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