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1 – 10 of 38The present study focuses on the link between foreign language anxiety (FLA), self-perceived proficiency, and multilingualism in the under-explored English as a Foreign Language…
Abstract
The present study focuses on the link between foreign language anxiety (FLA), self-perceived proficiency, and multilingualism in the under-explored English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context of Saudi Arabia. Ninety-six Arabic undergraduate college-level EFL students (56 males, 40 females) answered the Arabic version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS – Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986). The analyses revealed that Saudi multilinguals suffered from low to moderate levels of FLA with female participants experiencing more anxiety than their male counterparts. Multiple regression analyses revealed that gender and self-perceived proficiency explained over a quarter of variance in FLA. Furthermore, the study did not find any role of experience abroad in predicting FLA.
Dominic Detzen and Lukas Loehlein
The purpose of this paper is to examine how professional service firms (PSFs) manage the linguistic tensions between global Englishization and local multilingualism. It achieves…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how professional service firms (PSFs) manage the linguistic tensions between global Englishization and local multilingualism. It achieves this by analysing the work of Big Four audit firms in Luxembourg, where three official languages co-exist: Luxembourgish, French, and German. In addition, expatriates bring with them their native languages in a corporate environment that uses English as its lingua franca.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper combines the institutionalist sociology of the professions with theoretical concepts from sociolinguistics to study the multifaceted role of language in PSFs. Empirically, the paper draws from 25 interviews with current and former audit professionals.
Findings
The client orientation of the Big Four segments each firm into language teams based on the client’s language. It is thus the client languages, rather than English as the corporate language, that mediate, define, and structure intra- and inter-organizational relationships. While the firms emphasize the benefits of their linguistic adaptability, the paper reveals tensions along language lines, suggesting that language can be a means of creating cohesion and division within the firms.
Originality/value
This paper connects research on PSFs with that on the role of language in multinational organizations. In light of the Big Four’s increasingly global workforce, it draws attention to the linguistic divisions within the firms that question the existence of a singular corporate culture. While prior literature has centred on firms’ global–local divide, the paper shows that even single branches of such firm networks are not monolithic constructs, as conflicts and clashes unfold amid a series of “local–local” divides.
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Itziar Rekalde-Rodríguez, Pilar Gil-Molina and Esther Cruz Iglesias
The purpose of this paper is to examine the design of choreographies or learning environments which the students participating in Ocean i3 pass through during their participation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the design of choreographies or learning environments which the students participating in Ocean i3 pass through during their participation in the project, which requires constant review and interpretation, in times of COVID-19. To this end, it is proposed to: define the institutional teaching choreographies to create authentic and meaningful environments for the active learning of university students; interpret the transversal competences for the sustainability developed in Ocean i3 within the framework of institutional teaching choreographies; and value the strengths and weaknesses of the teaching choreographies implemented for the development of transversal competences for sustainability in a situation of health-care crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory method with an interpretative approach has been selected that enables us to address living and evolving scenarios, didactic choreographies and the development of competences for sustainability.
Findings
The perception of students and teachers reveals that it is the use of a multilingual linguistic repertoire (multilingualism) that is most enhanced in Ocean i3, although the global and integrative vision of problems and the integration and management of knowledge through contributions from different disciplines and the social context (transdisciplinarity) are also highlighted.
Originality/value
This paper describes how face-to-face institutional teaching choreographies for an innovation project have been transformed into synchronous online choreographies encouraging the development of competences for sustainability.
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Tsuneo Yamada and Yosuke Morimoto
In order to sustain the development and utilization of learning content under the limited financial and human resources, the sharing and reuse of open educational resources (OERs…
Abstract
In order to sustain the development and utilization of learning content under the limited financial and human resources, the sharing and reuse of open educational resources (OERs) have been promoted in various school levels and disciplines. In many countries, central organization(s) collect both learning content and its metadata, and provide them to learners and teachers with distinctive value‐added services from their portals. Collaborations among the national portals have also emerged beyond borders.Global Learning Object Brokered Exchange (GLOBE) is an international consortium of the hub organizations, which manage a federated repository and/or a meta‐referatory in each country and region. GLOBE was established in September 2004 by five founding members, and now twelve organizations in the world participate in. By adopting IEEE LOM version 1.0 for the metadata standards, SQI for the query language, and OAI‐PMH for harvesting, GLOBE realized a global search and delivery infrastructure for lifelong learning (LLL). At present, while the repositories all over the world store huge number of learning content and metadata, the variance of the quality becomes much bigger. In addition, because the effectiveness of learning content is relative and dependent on contextual factors, both optimizations specialized in learner characteristics and localizations to each language/culture are indispensable. The users need some supports on the quality and pedagogical guidance when they find their right content. GLOBE, based on multilingualism, multiculturalism and pluralism, collaborates to build up standardized services on the quality assurance of the content utilizing the “Educational” items of LOM. In AAOU framework also, the organizations can promote “openness”, and share the quality learning content and educational information by using a standardized content search and delivery infrastructure.
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Jin Gao, Julianne Nyhan, Oliver Duke-Williams and Simon Mahony
This paper presents a follow-on study that quantifies geolingual markers and their apparent connection with authorship collaboration patterns in canonical Digital Humanities (DH…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents a follow-on study that quantifies geolingual markers and their apparent connection with authorship collaboration patterns in canonical Digital Humanities (DH) journals. In particular, it seeks to detect patterns in authors' countries of work and languages in co-authorship networks.
Design/methodology/approach
Through an in-depth co-authorship network analysis, this study analysed bibliometric data from three canonical DH journals over a range of 52 years (1966–2017). The results are presented as visualised networks with centrality calculations.
Findings
The results suggest that while DH scholars may not collaborate as frequently as those in other disciplines, when they do so their collaborations tend to be more international than in many Science and Engineering, and Social Sciences disciplines. DH authors in some countries (e.g. Spain, Finland, Australia, Canada, and the UK) have the highest international co-author rates, while others have high national co-author rates but low international rates (e.g. Japan, the USA, and France).
Originality/value
This study is the first DH co-authorship network study that explores the apparent connection between language and collaboration patterns in DH. It contributes to ongoing debates about diversity, representation, and multilingualism in DH and academic publishing more widely.
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Whereas the geography of a certain area is certainly linked in many ways to the ethnic group occupying it (or who used to occupy it), the link between the land and the language/s…
Abstract
Whereas the geography of a certain area is certainly linked in many ways to the ethnic group occupying it (or who used to occupy it), the link between the land and the language/s spoken (or that used to be spoken) can only become visible through the linguistic landscape, which not only asserts identity and ownership but can also help to reinforce prestige and vitality of the languages employed. The problem is that if the local heritage language is a minority or regional one, only in few cases can it be used to affirm the identity and ownership of its speakers. There are two sine qua non conditions for the local language to appear in the linguistic landscape: 1) The language must have gone beyond the 'threshold of literacy', i.e. it must have developed as a written language, with its own orthography and literature; 2) The language must be allowed to be used in the linguistic landscape and/or enjoy a degree of official recognition. This article presents five case studies on the presence of local minority/regional languages in the linguistic landscape based on the author’s research: two in Italy (Udine and Milan) and two in Southeast Asia (Kuala Lumpur and Bandar Seri Begawan, the capitals of Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam respectively). The very interesting situation in Macao will also be touched on, where the colonial language, Portuguese, has been given prominence in the linguistic landscape in spite of the fact that only a tiny percentage of the population can speak it. In this case, Portuguese is portrayed as a kind of heritage language (as well as an international language) that does not need to be mastered as its main function is symbolic, i.e. to help Macao retain its special status as a Special Administration Region of China.
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The shift in the function of English as a medium of instruction together with its use in knowledge construction and dissemination among scholars continue to fuel the global demand…
Abstract
Purpose
The shift in the function of English as a medium of instruction together with its use in knowledge construction and dissemination among scholars continue to fuel the global demand for high-level proficiency in the language. These components of the global knowledge economy mean that the ability of nations to produce multilinguals with advanced English proficiency alongside their mastery of other languages has become a key to global competitiveness. That need is helping to drive one of the greatest language learning experiments the world has ever known. It carries significant implications for new research agendas and teacher preparation in applied linguistics.
Design/methodology/approach
Evidence-based decision-making, whether it pertains to language policy decisions, instructional practices, teacher professional development or curricula/program building, needs to be based on a rigorous and systematically pursued program of research and assessment.
Findings
This paper seeks to advance these objectives by identifying new research foci that underscore a student-centered approach.
Originality/value
It introduces a new theoretical construct – multilingual proficiency – to underscore the knowledge that the learner develops in the process of language learning that makes for the surest route to the desired high levels of language proficiency. The paper highlights the advantages of a student-centered approach that focuses on multilingual proficiency for teachers and explores the concomitant conclusions for teacher development.
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Josefine Wagner and Nikolett Szelei
The purpose of this study is to highlight a paradox between inclusion/exclusion at the level of the organisation and classroom practices, as well as between general and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to highlight a paradox between inclusion/exclusion at the level of the organisation and classroom practices, as well as between general and disability/special educational needs (SEN)-specific approaches to diversity in the classroom. The authors recommend better alignment between school policies and teaching practices to offer all students an equal chance to benefit from inclusive pedagogies.
Design/methodology/approach
This study analyses a school that has gained public reputation as an innovative, inclusive school in Austria. Applying a case study with an ethnographic methodological approach, the authors explore what strategies are implemented to become more inclusive at the level of school organisation and classroom practices? What are the pedagogical beliefs and actions relating to diversity that drive inclusive efforts? How is this school's general approach to diversity enacted with students with SEN?
Findings
The findings show that context-specific circumstances shape inclusive school development, which comes with a set of affordances and challenges. The authors argue that in this case, striving for inclusion indicated two ways of “doing difference differently”. First, the school has built on many cornerstones of inclusion when relating and responding to student diversity, that was remarkably different than in other mainstream schools in Austria. On the contrary, while creating new educational and pedagogical norms, it also recycled conventional segregating tendencies, and as such, reproduced hierarchised difference, but in other ways than schools typically do in mainstream schooling.
Originality/value
This school and its pedagogical mission have never been analysed through the rich data that two researchers were able to gather and work through.
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Elisa Banfi and Arnaud Gaudinat
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Swiss public libraries are experiencing a normative revolution connected to new cataloging standards, such as RDA and the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Swiss public libraries are experiencing a normative revolution connected to new cataloging standards, such as RDA and the FRBRization of catalogs.
Design/methodology/approach
Thanks to semi-structured interviews, the paper analyzes the current positioning of Swiss public libraries on the “bibliographic transition” issue by using a case study of the network of municipal libraries in Geneva.
Findings
In Switzerland, the federal and multi-linguistic structure of the library networks increases the organizational obstacles to the adoption of new cataloging principles and formats. At the local level, the Swiss municipal libraries have to cope with this complexity to transform their structures and continue to offer competitive and effective services to their users.
Practical implications
The paper proposes six scenarios of technology watershed for the analyzed case study and their consequences for cataloging standards and rules.
Social implications
The paper shows how the adoption of technological and conceptual innovations has to be done in the face of real organizational and administrative constraints, especially in the case of public lending libraries.
Originality/value
The paper analyzes at the empirical and theoretical levels how, especially in Switzerland, the variety of governance levels and linguistic areas have made strategizing more complex for public lending libraries.
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