scholarly journals Investigating the Impact of EFL Students’ Misuse of Prosodic Features on their Face-to-face Interactions from University Instructors’ Perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-64
Author(s):  
Bahram Sattar Abdulrahman

The present study aims at investigating the use of prosodic features by Kurdish EFL undergraduates in their face-to-face interactions inside/outside the classroom from the university instructors’ perspectives. The study hypothesizes that the majority of Kurdish EFL undergraduates are not fully aware of the fact that any misuse of prosodic features would probably affect the emotions, feelings, and attitudes that the face-to-face interaction is intended to convey. Building on an analysis of a questionnaire given to 54 university instructors at 10 Iraqi Kurdistan Region different universities, the study concludes that the majority of problems the students face can be related to the misuse of stress, intonation, and other prosodic features. Therefore, EFL instructors should pay more attention to make students learn how to use prosodic features and enable them to send messages adequately while engaging in face-to-face interactions. This would require special classes about prosodic features so that EFL students can overcome the misuse they have in face-to-face communication. This is inevitable because accuracy and fluency in communication require EFL students to master both features: segmental and suprasegmental. The reason behind this necessity could be attributed to the fact that broken and/or incorrect pronunciation can be considered as one of the most prominent factors behind misunderstandings in communication.

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Omar Cuevas Salazar ◽  
Ramona Imelda García López ◽  
Javier José Vales García ◽  
Isidro Roberto Cruz Medina

The tutorship program is aimed at supporting students throughout their university career and its objective is to prevent future problems of adaptation in the educational ambience as well as intervening in matters of academic achievement. At the Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora (Technological Institute of Sonora) (ITSON), the individual tutorship program began in 2000. In 2002 group tutoring began in order to see to the entire first year student population and today group tutoring is offered in both the face-to-face and virtual modalities. The general objective of the present study is to determine the impact the programs of face-to-face and virtual tutoring at the ITSON has had on students’ academic achievement, during the four semesters after having participated in this program. Information on 2,995 students from the different areas of study offered at the university was collected from databases which existed at the Institute and analyzed using different statistical techniques. The tutoring program is shown to have had a favorable impact on the index of students’ failing classes, during the semester they were enrolled in tutoring, but not during the subsequent semesters, during which they did not participate in the tutorship program. The grade point averages obtained by students who had face-to-face tutoring were statistically different from those of the students who did not have tutoring. This was true for all of the semesters analyzed. The same thing happened with the students who had virtual tutoring except for during the second semester when the two were statistically equal.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. ii26-ii26
Author(s):  
Emma Toman ◽  
Claire Goddard ◽  
Frederick Berki ◽  
William Garratt ◽  
Teresa Scott ◽  
...  

Abstract INTRODUCTION Controversy exists as to whether telephone clinics are appropriate in neurosurgical-oncology. The COVID-19 pandemic forced neuro-oncology services worldwide to re-design and at the University Hospitals Birmingham UK, telephone clinics were quickly implemented in select patients to limit numbers of patients attending hospital. It was important to determine how these changes were perceived by patients. METHODS A 20-question patient satisfaction questionnaire was distributed to patients who attended neuro-oncology clinic in person (“face-to-face”), or via the telephone. Fisher’s exact test was used to determine significance, which was set at p< 0.05. RESULTS Eighty questionnaires were distributed between June 2020 and August 2020. Overall, 50% (n=40) of patients returned the questionnaire, 50% (n=23) of face-to-face and 50% (n=17) telephone patients. Of those who received telephone consultations, 88% (n=15) felt the consultation was convenient, 88% (n=15) were satisfied with their consultation and 18% (n=3) felt they would have preferred to have a face-to-face appointment. Of those who attended clinic in person, 96% (n=22) felt their consultation was convenient, 100% (n=23) were satisfied with their consultation and 13% (n=3) would have preferred a telephone consultation. Within the face-to-face clinic attendees, only 13% (n=3) were concerned regarding the COVID risk associated with attending hospital. There was no significant difference in patient convenience or satisfaction (p=0.565 and p=0.174 respectively) between face-to-face and telephone clinics. There was no significant difference in whether patients would’ve preferred the alternative method of consultation (p > 0.999). CONCLUSION Our study suggests that careful patient selection for neuro-oncology telephone clinic is not inferior to face-to-face clinic. Telephone clinic during COVID-19 pandemic proved to be convenient, safe and effective. This global health crisis has transformed telephone neuro-oncology consultations from an experimental innovation into established practice and should be continued beyond the pandemic in select cases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-18
Author(s):  
Ian Miles ◽  
◽  
Veronika Belousova ◽  
Nikolay Chichkanov ◽  
Zhaklin Krayushkina ◽  
...  

Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are problem-solvers for other organizations. The coronacrisis affects KIBS directly, but also means that their clients are confronting new problems. How are KIBS addressing these two sets of challenges? This paper draws on material available in the trade and industry press, on official reports and statistics, and the early academic studies addressing these themes. We find that KIBS have been active (alongside other organizations) in providing a substantial range of services aimed at helping their clients (and others) deal with various contingencies thrown up by the crisis. Not least among these is the need to conform to shifting regulatory frameworks, and requirements for longer-term resilience. KIBS themselves have had to adapt their working practices considerably, to reduce face-to-face interaction with clients and within teams collaborating on projects. Adaptation is easier for those whose tasks that are relatively standardized and codified, and it remains to be seen how far a shift to such activities - and away from the traditional office-based venues of activity - is retained as firms recover from the crisis. KIBS are liable to play an important role in this recovery from the crisis, and policymakers can mobilize their services. Some KIBS are liable to be critical for rendering economies more resilient in the face of future pandemics and we argue that these firms are also important for confronting the mounting climate crisis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 120
Author(s):  
Safrul Muluk ◽  
Habiburrahim Habiburrahim ◽  
Syarifah Dahliana ◽  
Saiful Akmal

Issues and incidents of bullying may take place, regardless of time and place, notwithstanding at Islamic education institutions. This study is aimed at finding out types of bullying and their triggering factors taking place in the university classroom; examining steps taken by lecturers to anticipate and prevent classroom bullying; and analyzing the impact of bullying on EFL students’ academic achievement. This mixed-methods study involved 546 students and 30 lecturers of the English Language Education Department at three state Islamic universities in Indonesia; Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta, Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, and Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry in Banda Aceh. Both surveys and interviews were employed to collect the required data. The findings elucidate that physical, social, verbal, and racial are among the most common emergent bullying incidents the students experienced. Revealing the triggering factors of bullying, the data show that competition in academic and social life, differences in thoughts and appearances, lack of understanding of bullying meaning, and lack of regulation are pointed as the source of bullying. The findings also indicate that bullying influences students’ academic achievement; bullying incidents have driven their victims into four pathetic conditions: less confident, stressed, anxious, and passive. Some steps are applied by the lecturer to prevent and handle bullying; they are: providing classroom regulation, being a counselor for students, enforcing the regulation, and massive socialization.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 461-472
Author(s):  
S. Ameyaw ◽  
A. Frempong-Kore

This study was conducted to ascertain records management practices at the Ghana Communications Technology University (formerly Ghana Technology University College) a mid-sized Ghanaian public university located in Accra. All the staff at the Admissions and Records departments participated in the study. This comprised two (2) heads of department and seven (7) senior staff from both departments. The face-to-face interviews were employed as a data collection instrument for this study. The findings indicated that the University has neither a policy to regulate the management of students' records nor a professional archivist to manage records. However, the head of the Records office was given a three-day training on the assumption of office. It was revealed that the head of admissions, as well as all the staff of the two departments, had never been given any training. There were some challenges impeding records management in the Admissions and Records offices– among them are; lack of adequate staff, inadequate storage equipment, lack of periodic training, lack of policy to guide records management and inability of students to furnish the Admission office with the needed information. It was recommended that the University should employ a professional archivist to manage student records, provide adequate storage facilities, organise periodic training for staff as well promulgate a policy to guide records management in the Admissions and Records offices. Keywords: Accra Campus, Records, Management, Practices, Ghana Communication Technology University


Author(s):  
Hanyu Sun ◽  
Frederick G Conrad ◽  
Frauke Kreuter

Abstract Audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) has been widely used to collect sensitive information from respondents in face-to-face interviews. Interviewers ask questions that are not sensitive or only moderately sensitive and then allow respondents to self-administer more sensitive questions, listening to audio recordings of the questions and typically entering their responses directly into the same device that the interviewer has used. According to the conventional thinking, ACASI is taken as independent of the face-to-face interaction that almost always precedes it. Presumably as a result of this presumed independence, the respondents’ prior interaction with the interviewer is rarely considered when assessing the quality of ACASI responses. There is no body of existing research that has experimentally investigated how the preceding interviewer–respondent interaction may create sufficient social presence to affect responses in the subsequent ACASI module. The study reported here, a laboratory experiment with eight professional interviewers and 125 respondents, explores the carryover effects of preceding interactions between interviewer and respondent on responses in the subsequent ACASI. We evaluated the impact of the similarity of the live and recorded interviewer’s voice for each respondent as well as respondents’ rapport with interviewers in the preceding interview. We did not find significant main effects of vocal similarity on disclosure in ACASI. However, we found significant interaction effects between vocal similarity and respondents’ rapport ratings in the preceding interview on disclosure in ACASI. When the ACASI voice was similar to the interviewer’s voice in the preceding interaction, respondent-rated rapport led to more disclosure but, when the ACASI voice is clearly different from the interviewer’s voice, respondent-rated rapport in the prior interaction did not affect disclosure.


Author(s):  
Juan Chaves ◽  
Antonio A. Lorca-Marín ◽  
Emilio José Delgado-Algarra

Different studies show that mixed methodology can be effective in medical training. However, there are no conclusive studies in specialist training on advanced life support (ALS). The main objective of this research is to determine if, with mixed didactic methodology, which includes e-learning, similar results are produced to face-to-face training. The method used was quasi-experimental with a focus on efficiency and evaluation at seven months, in which 114 specialist doctors participated and where the analysis of the sociodemographic and pre-test variables points to the homogeneity of the groups. The intervention consisted of e-learning training plus face-to-face workshops versus standard. The results were the performance in knowledge and technical skills in cardiac arrest scenarios, the perceived quality, and the perception of the training. There were no significant differences in immediate or deferred performance. In the degree of satisfaction, a significant difference was obtained in favour of the face-to-face group. The perception in the training itself presented similar results. The main limitations consisted of sample volume, dropping out of the deferred tests, and not evaluating the transfer or the impact. Finally, mixed methodology including e-learning in ALS courses reduced the duration of the face-to-face sessions and allowed a similar performance.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (04) ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
Tom Gibson

This article presents views of Todd Torrence on introduction of online learning programs that can open paths from technical to technological. The University of North Dakota, which offers the only accredited online BSME program in the United States, is in a state where hydraulic fracturing has sharply increased oil production. The university has applied for accreditation of an online program offering a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering. The UND online BSME program covers the same material as its on-campus counterpart. North Carolina State has a 2+2 program where a student can go to a partnering university at the east and west ends of the state for the first two years of their undergraduate work. The University of North Dakota online BSME program covers the same material as its on-campus counterpart. Part of the accreditation process is assuring that the online degree is equivalent to the face-to-face degree. The challenge with undergrad online engineering programs is their sheer size and the time it takes to complete them, as compared with graduate programs.


Author(s):  
Kawther Khalid Ahmed ◽  
Ali Azeez Al-Jumaili ◽  
Salema Sultan Salman ◽  
Sarmed Hashem Kathem

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on education models was mainly through the expansion of technology use in the different educational programs. Earlier impact of COVID-19 was manifested in the complete and sudden transition to distance education regardless of institution preparedness status. Gradually, many institutions are moving back to on-campus face-to-face education. However, others including all higher education institutions in Iraq are adopting the hybrid education model. This report presents part of the end of semester evaluation survey conducted at the University of Baghdad College of Pharmacy for the Spring 2021 semester. The survey aims to address points of strength and weakness associated with the hybrid education model and specifically the virtual content delivery aspect of hybrid education. The outcomes of the end of semester evaluation will shape a better experience for upcoming years and guide distance education implantation in the program.   


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