scholarly journals Explicit and implicit vocabulary learning: A comparative study based on EFL textbooks in Mainland China and Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Xin Liu

Purpose The purpose of this study is to evaluate the vocabulary settings in two English textbooks used in Mainland China and Hong Kong respectively, and provide useful suggestions for teachers to choose or adapt English as a foreign language (EFL) textbook. The study centers on two English textbooks for grade-nine/ JS3 EFL learners in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Methods The two textbooks will firstly be compared and contrasted at the macro-level, covering perspectives such as organization, visual aids, glossary, and supplementary materials. Next, to study the treatment of vocabulary further at the micro-level, the study will focus on one unit in the two selected textbooks sharing the same theme. Results At the macro-level, the two textbooks are both clear and colored printed, theme-based, glossary included, visual aids provided, and practice given. They mainly differ in module components and word load in the glossary. At the micro-level, both of them give pre-teaching of new words before reading/listening, present words in context, provide scaffolding, follow a sequence of difficulty, integrate well with the development of other language skills, but they are different in some ways. Conclusion In terms of vocabulary treatment, results showed that both textbooks generally follow similar organization and presentation but differ in suggested teaching approaches. The textbook used in Mainland addresses on the word meaning while the textbook in Hong Kong follows a more implicit approach. In order to facilitate the evaluation of the vocabulary section in EFL textbooks, a new checklist and teaching implications for teachers are proposed in the thesis.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggi W. H. Leung ◽  
Johanna L. Waters ◽  
Yutin Ki

AbstractAround 30,000 children living in Shenzhen, Mainland China cross the border to Hong Kong to attend school every day. This paper focuses on the school as a key meso-level organisation that mediates macro-level policies and micro-level everyday life experiences among these children and their families. We advocate a relational, spatial perspective, conceptualising schools as webs of intersecting physical, social and digital spaces, where differences between the “locals” and “others” are played out, negotiated and (re)produced, and in turn giving rise to specific (and understudied) geographies of in/exclusion. Drawing on our qualitative research, we offer a close reading of three exemplary school spaces: (i) the physical classroom and school grounds, (ii) the digital classroom, and (iii) at the school gate. Our findings demonstrate the complex and at times contradictory ways in which “the school” is a place of both inclusion and exclusion. It is a dynamic and power-traversed space where social differences between the “locals” and the “others” are played out, contested and redefined continuously.


Corpora ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Partington

In this paper, I want to examine the special relevance of (non)obviousness in corpus linguistics through drawing on case studies. The research discussion is divided into two parts. The first is an examination of (non)obviousness at the micro-level, that is, in lexico-grammatical analyses, whilst the second looks at the more macro-level of (non)obviousness on the plane of discourse. In the final sections, I will examine various types of non-obvious meaning one can come across in Corpus-assisted Discourse Studies (CADS), which range from: ‘I knew that all along (now)’ to ‘that's interesting’ to ‘I sensed that but didn't know why’ (intuitive impressions and corpus-assisted explanations) to ‘I never even knew I never knew that’ (serendipity or ‘non-obvious non-obviousness’, analogous to ‘unknown unknowns’).


Asian Survey ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 820-839
Author(s):  
Patrick Yeung
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Philip Goff

This is the first of two chapters discussing the most notorious problem facing Russellian monism: the combination problem. This is actually a family of difficulties, each reflecting the challenge of how to make sense of everyday human and animal experience intelligibly arising from more fundamental conscious or protoconscious features of reality. Key challenges facing panpsychist and panpsychist forms of Russellian monism are considered. With respect to panprotopsychism, there is the worry that it collapses into noumenalism: the view that human beings, by their very nature, are unable to understand the concrete, categorical nature of matter. With respect to panpsychism, there is the subject-summing problem: the difficulty making sense of how micro-level conscious subjects combine to produce macro-level conscious subjects. A solution to the subject-summing problem is proposed, and it is ultimately argued that panpsychist forms of the Russellian monism are to be preferred on grounds of simplicity and elegance.


Author(s):  
Anna-Maija Puroila ◽  
Jaana Juutinen ◽  
Elina Viljamaa ◽  
Riikka Sirkko ◽  
Taina Kyrönlampi ◽  
...  

AbstractThe study draws on a relational and intersectional approach to young children’s belonging in Finnish educational settings. Belonging is conceptualized as a multilevel, dynamic, and relationally constructed phenomenon. The aim of the study is to explore how children’s belonging is shaped in the intersections between macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of young children’s education in Finland. The data consist of educational policy documents and ethnographic material generated in educational programs for children aged birth to 8 years. A situational mapping framework is used to analyze and interpret the data across and within systems levels (macro-level; meso-level; and micro-level). The findings show that the landscape in which children’s belonging is shaped and the intersections across and within the levels are characterized by the tensions between similarities and differences, majority and minorities, continuity and change, authority and agency. Language used, practices enacted, and positional power emerge as the (re)sources through which children’s (un)belonging is actively produced.


Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Zhong Xing Tan

Abstract This paper explores the promise of pluralism in the realm of contract law. I begin by identifying and rejecting conceptual strategies adopted by monistic and dualistic approaches. Turning towards pluralism, I evaluate three versions in contemporary literature: pluralism across contracting spheres and types, pluralism through consensus and convergence, and pluralism through localised values-balancing and practical reasoning. I suggest embracing some pluralism about contract pluralism, by using these models to construct a framework of ‘meta-pluralism’, where at the macro-level, we are concerned with plural spheres of contracting activity; at the meso-level, a variety of trans-substantive interpretive concepts that receive some measure of juristic consensus; and at the micro-level, practical reasoning through particularistic analysis of case-specific considerations. I illustrate the meta-pluralistic framework through a case study on the varieties of specific performance, and explain how the proposed pluralistic framework enriches our understanding of the nature of contract.


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