Investigating the Use of Task Resumption Cues to Support Learning in Interruption-Prone Environments

The ubiquity of mobile devices in peoples’ everyday life makes them a feasible tool for language learning. Learning anytime and anywhere creates great flexibility but comes with the inherent risk of infrequent learning and learning in interruption-prone environments. No matter the length of the learning break, it can negatively affect knowledge consolidation and recall. This work presents the design and implementation of memory cues to support task resumption in mobile language learning applications and two evaluations to assess their impact on user experience. An initial laboratory experiment (N=15) revealed that while the presentation of the cues had no significant effect on objective performance measures (task completion time and error rate), the users still perceived the cues as helpful and would appreciate them in a mobile learning app. A follow-up study (N=16) investigated revised cue designs in a real-world field setting and found that users particularly appreciated our interactive test cue design. We discuss strengths and limitations of our concept and implications for the application of task resumption cues beyond the scope of mobile language learning.

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Language and emotions: a follow-up study of ‘moral allegiances’- the case of Wiktoria

TEANGA, the Journal of the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics ◽

10.35903/teanga.v10i0.77 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 ◽

pp. 172-185

Author(s):

Malgorzata Machowska-Kosciak

Keyword(s):

Language Learning ◽

Primary Schools ◽

Field Work ◽

Theoretical Background ◽

Her Family ◽

Language And Culture ◽

Follow Up Study ◽

Cultural Ideologies ◽

Communication Approach

This paper is a follow-up study of one Polish immigrant child’s early experience as she is attending different primary schools in Ireland. The focus is on how heritage language socialisation goals affect her goals and identity negotiation through her daily practices as she grows up in multilingual environment and try to find her place in a new country and society. We set out the theoretical background, methodology, final results from the longitudinal study (four years) involving such student and her family, as she also attends Polish weekend school in addition to her mainstream school. The theoretical and analytical approach combines Ethnography of Communication approach to data collection and field work (participant home and school observations, audio-recordings of child’s interactions with her peers, her teachers and parents, open-ended interviews, samples of her written work) with Discourse Analysis approaches (Duff, 1995; Davis & Harre 1990, Harre & Langenhove, 1999, Ochs & Capps, 2001). A particular focus is placed on positions and stances taken with respect to sociohistorical and cultural norms and values represented by each language and culture including religious practices. When a new language and culture are being socialized, they must inevitably affect individuals’ moral and emotional systems to a great extent. This is because, some unresolved conflicts of cultural allegiances and ambivalence about identity may shake one’s sense of belonging and even slow the learning process. It can impact on the later command of two languages and integration. On the other hand, “comfortable bicultural identity” and “non-ethnocentric views” of people in general, together with a strong aptitude for language learning, proved to be one of the main factors determining success in becoming skilled in two languages and two cultures (Lambert, 1962, in Paulson & Tucker 2006, pp.315-319). Thus, it is often admitted in the Language Socialisation literature that cultural ideologies not only have a profound effect on those who learn a new language, but also influence the learning and further socialisation of their first language and culture. This micro-analysis of language socialisation is contextualized within a more holistic account of the Polish community in Ireland (Singleton, 2007) - a community culturally shaped by, and in turn shaping, wider societal and cultural ideologies, values and power relations.

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Electron Microscopy of Human Gallstones

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100065523 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 29 ◽

pp. 296-297

Author(s):

C. Wolpers ◽

R. Blaschke

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Room Temperature ◽

Bile Pigment ◽

X Ray Diffraction ◽

Triclinic Crystal System ◽

X Ray ◽

Follow Up Study ◽

Infra Red ◽

Main Components

Scanning microscopy was used to study the surface of human gallstones and the surface of fractures. The specimens were obtained by operation, washed with water, dried at room temperature and shadowcasted with carbon and aluminum. Most of the specimens belong to patients from a series of X-ray follow-up study, examined during the last twenty years. So it was possible to evaluate approximately the age of these gallstones and to get information on the intensity of growing and solving.Cholesterol, a group of bile pigment substances and different salts of calcium, are the main components of human gallstones. By X-ray diffraction technique, infra-red spectroscopy and by chemical analysis it was demonstrated that all three components can be found in any gallstone. In the presence of water cholesterol crystallizes in pane-like plates of the triclinic crystal system.

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