scholarly journals Restructuring a Beginner Language Program: A Quantitative Analysis of Face-To-Face versus Flipped-Blended Spanish Instruction

Hispania ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-274
Author(s):  
Nina Moreno ◽  
Paul A. Malovrh
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-95
Author(s):  
Agathe Piquet

With European Union agencies becoming increasingly significant actors in European governance, further research is needed to understand how they interact with their environment. Applying the ‘reputation’ literature to Europol, this article examines in greater detail how agencies behave with their ‘informal’ audiences in comparison with the formal ones. It demonstrates that agencies are deeply invested in the shaping of their reputation, including towards their informal audiences especially if the latter represent ‘reputational threats.’ Based on a quantitative analysis of activity reports and on a qualitative study of the face-to-face engagements of Europol with the European Parliament over time, this research sheds light on the complementary communicative strategies agencies can use to (re)present themselves depending on the dimension of their reputation at stake.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Conti

Due to their light-weight appearance and polysemy, the acquisition of Chinese sentence-final particles (SFPs) constitutes a criticality for learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). However, the number of studies addressing SFP acquisition and teaching is still limited. This study investigates the use of SFPs in the interactions between 13 Italian CFL learners and 6 native speakers of Chinese participating in a face-to-face tandem-learning project over a three-month timespan. In particular, it focuses on learners’ production of SFPs marking questions (yes/no or truncated) and analyses the factors that foster or hinder SFP use. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the transcribed conversations showed that (i) the most frequently produced SFP was ma, whereas other interrogative SFPs were seldom or never used; (ii) the production of SFPs did not vary over time, instead it seemed to be tied to factors such as the presence of (semi-)fixed chunks or the type of task (focused or unfocused) in which the participants were engaged.


Author(s):  
Manon Gadbois ◽  
Denise Quildon

This paper reports on the development and implementation in 2012 of McGill University’s French at Work program for McGill employees, using a blended learning model. The program is an example of how a reduction in face-to-face teaching presents one solution to employees’ scheduling constraints and how this model might offer suggestions for the development of similar programs in a higher education setting.McGill University’s French at Work program welcomes a diverse participant body from different faculties and service groups. Created in response to decreasing enrolment and higher levels of absenteeism, the authors report that interdepartmental collaboration and a complete course redesign, along pre- established professional themes, were required in its development. Using the University’s Learning Management System (Desire2Learn) the course incorporates in-class sessions, self-directed, web-based activities as well as synchronous and asynchronous online discus- sions employing Microsoft Lync.A subsequent increase in registration and retention rates strongly suggests the program answers a real need for professional development in French as a second language within McGill University through innovative use of certain technologies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ju Seong Lee

The author investigates what challenges four international students (Vietnamese, Filipino, Brazilian, and Chinese) faced and how they coped with these dilemmas in a Japanese language program during the first semester in 2014. Multiple apparatuses (e.g., field notes, face-to-face oral interviews, focal group conversations, and semi-structured written interviews) were employed to triangulate the data. The findings show four major challenges: Personal psychological issues, general living issues, sociocultural issues, and Japanese language issues. Additionally, supporting group, positive attitude, interaction with Japanese friends, financial assistance, and useful learning strategies are identified as coping strategies. The results will provide implications for international students as well as language instructors and program coordinators in a higher education institution to better assist the international students.


Author(s):  
J.P. Fallon ◽  
P.J. Gregory ◽  
C.J. Taylor

Quantitative image analysis systems have been used for several years in research and quality control applications in various fields including metallurgy and medicine. The technique has been applied as an extension of subjective microscopy to problems requiring quantitative results and which are amenable to automatic methods of interpretation.Feature extraction. In the most general sense, a feature can be defined as a portion of the image which differs in some consistent way from the background. A feature may be characterized by the density difference between itself and the background, by an edge gradient, or by the spatial frequency content (texture) within its boundaries. The task of feature extraction includes recognition of features and encoding of the associated information for quantitative analysis.Quantitative Analysis. Quantitative analysis is the determination of one or more physical measurements of each feature. These measurements may be straightforward ones such as area, length, or perimeter, or more complex stereological measurements such as convex perimeter or Feret's diameter.


Author(s):  
V. V. Damiano ◽  
R. P. Daniele ◽  
H. T. Tucker ◽  
J. H. Dauber

An important example of intracellular particles is encountered in silicosis where alveolar macrophages ingest inspired silica particles. The quantitation of the silica uptake by these cells may be a potentially useful method for monitoring silica exposure. Accurate quantitative analysis of ingested silica by phagocytic cells is difficult because the particles are frequently small, irregularly shaped and cannot be visualized within the cells. Semiquantitative methods which make use of particles of known size, shape and composition as calibration standards may be the most direct and simplest approach to undertake. The present paper describes an empirical method in which glass microspheres were used as a model to show how the ratio of the silicon Kα peak X-ray intensity from the microspheres to that of a bulk sample of the same composition correlated to the mass of the microsphere contained within the cell. Irregular shaped silica particles were also analyzed and a calibration curve was generated from these data.


Author(s):  
H.J. Dudek

The chemical inhomogenities in modern materials such as fibers, phases and inclusions, often have diameters in the region of one micrometer. Using electron microbeam analysis for the determination of the element concentrations one has to know the smallest possible diameter of such regions for a given accuracy of the quantitative analysis.In th is paper the correction procedure for the quantitative electron microbeam analysis is extended to a spacial problem to determine the smallest possible measurements of a cylindrical particle P of high D (depth resolution) and diameter L (lateral resolution) embeded in a matrix M and which has to be analysed quantitative with the accuracy q. The mathematical accounts lead to the following form of the characteristic x-ray intens ity of the element i of a particle P embeded in the matrix M in relation to the intensity of a standard S


Author(s):  
John A. Hunt

Spectrum-imaging is a useful technique for comparing different processing methods on very large data sets which are identical for each method. This paper is concerned with comparing methods of electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) quantitative analysis on the Al-Li system. The spectrum-image analyzed here was obtained from an Al-10at%Li foil aged to produce δ' precipitates that can span the foil thickness. Two 1024 channel EELS spectra offset in energy by 1 eV were recorded and stored at each pixel in the 80x80 spectrum-image (25 Mbytes). An energy range of 39-89eV (20 channels/eV) are represented. During processing the spectra are either subtracted to create an artifact corrected difference spectrum, or the energy offset is numerically removed and the spectra are added to create a normal spectrum. The spectrum-images are processed into 2D floating-point images using methods and software described in [1].


Author(s):  
Delbert E. Philpott ◽  
David Leaffer

There are certain advantages for electron probe analysis if the sample can be tilted directly towards the detector. The count rate is higher, it optimizes the geometry since only one angle need be taken into account for quantitative analysis and the signal to background ratio is improved. The need for less tilt angle may be an advantage because the grid bars are not moved quite as close to each other, leaving a little more open area for observation. Our present detector (EDAX) and microscope (Philips 300) combination precludes moving the detector behind the microscope where it would point directly at the grid. Therefore, the angle of the specimen was changed in order to optimize the geometry between the specimen and the detector.


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