“Desire Is Like a Dreadful Monster”: Analysis of Extended Metaphors in L2 Argumentative Essays by Chinese Learners of English

This article explores the use, function, and understanding of extended metaphors in L2 argumentative essays by Chinese learners of English. The analysis starts with the identification of linguistic metaphors and extended metaphors in 72 argumentative texts produced by 37 intermediate Chinese English majors. The function of extended metaphors is then analyzed by adopting the bottom-up approach of establishing systematic metaphors from those identified extended metaphors, to draw learners’ communicative intentions in producing extended metaphors. To understand learners’ thinking processes behind using extended metaphors while writing, four of nine writers were interviewed about the process of writing extended metaphors in their texts in the stimulated recall interviews. It is found that extended metaphors, expressed through similes or direct metaphors at strategic stages in L2 argumentative essays, are often the result of learners’ conscious manipulation of L1 in producing L2 for various communicative purposes, such as the desire for vividness, coherence, comprehensibility, when there is a knowledge gap between L1 and L2, and for evaluative and persuasive power. These communicative functions are consistent with the ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions of language, which also coincide and interact with the rhetorical goals of moves and stages in L2 argumentative essays. Metaphoric thinking, L1 influence, and struggling to express meaning and persuade, cited in learners’ thought reports, are major factors triggering extended metaphors. The findings of this article can contribute to the knowledge of learners’ metaphoric competence in L2, which can, in turn, enrich teachers’ metaphor knowledge and draw teachers’ attention to learners’ creative ways of using metaphors and then raise metaphor awareness in L2 writing, teaching, and learning.

Willing, Silent or Forced Participation? Insights from English for Academic Purposes Classrooms

This study explores students’ participation in English for Academic Purposes classrooms from both teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Data were collected from videotaping of 11 English for academic purposes classes, semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers and stimulated-recall interviews with 33 students. The results indicate that three types of participation were identified, including willing, silent and forced participation. The results also show that a range of contextual and individual factors affect students’ participation in class activities and discussions. The contextual factors include class atmosphere, teacher support, peer participation, task, topic and interactional pattern. The individual factors include students’ confidence, personality and their perceived and actual communicative competence. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are also discussed.

Novice and expert Grade 9 teachers’ responses to unexpected learner offers in the teaching of algebra

In South Africa, limited studies have been conducted investigating responsive teaching and little is known about how teachers respond to unexpected events ‘in the moment’ that did not form part of their planning. In this article, we report how a Grade 9 novice and expert teacher responded to unexpected learner offers during the teaching of algebra using a qualitative case study approach. Three consecutive lessons for each teacher were video recorded, transcribed and analysed. Our units of analysis for episodes were teachers’ responses to unexpected learner offers and we coded the responses as ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’. Indicators used to highlight the degree of quality of the response were ‘minimum’, ‘middle’ and ‘maximum’ if a response was coded as appropriate to a learner’s offer. Once lessons were analysed, the first author conducted video-stimulated recall interviews with each participant to gain insight into the two teachers’ thoughts and decision-making when responding to unexpected learner offers. The findings from this study illustrated that the novice teacher failed to press learners when their thinking was unclear, chose to ignore or provided an incorrect answer when faced with an unexpected learner offer. Conversely, the expert teacher continuously interrogated learner offers by pressing if a learner offer was unclear or if she wanted learners to explain their thinking. This suggests that the expert teacher’s responses were highly supportive of emergent mathematics learning in the collective classroom space.

Peer interactions among under three years old children in Malaysian childcare centres: A case study approach

<p>Research on infants’ and toddlers’ peer interactions in childcare centres shows many benefits for children’s social competence. With increasing participation of under-three year olds in group-based early childhood services worldwide, there is also growing interest in the role played by childcare adults in supporting children’s social competence. In the Malaysian context, where the number of childcare settings is growing rapidly, early childhood research remains limited and is non-existent within the field of understanding the complexity of infants’ and toddlers’ peer interactions. At the same time there has been a mounting discourse by Malaysian economists promoting the benefits of non-cognitive skills to a country, thus focussing attention on social skills, of which peer interactions are a form. This study opens up this under-researched field in Malaysia through three qualitative case studies – one in each of three childcare centres in the state of Selangor. Each case study involved individual semi-structured interviews with the childcare practitioners, video-recorded observations of the children’s peer interactions, and video-stimulated recall interviews. A focus group discussion was conducted too with all of the practitioners after that. The aim of the study was to examine how practitioners perceived peer interactions among children under three years old in their childcare centres, and the kinds of peer interactions that occurred among the children. Drawing on constructs from a range of social constructivist theoretical perspectives, the findings revealed that at the start of the study, the practitioners saw themselves as promoting peer interactions by facilitating group activities and managing interactions between children by responding to their conflicts. The observations of children’s peer interactions revealed complex negotiations by the children who were actively creating a sense of belonging and togetherness at their childcare centres like embracing the centre’s routines, and responding to the needs of others including through humour and laughter. In the process of these interactions, children exercised their agency and learned the skills of becoming socially competent participants in their centre. Through video-stimulated recall interviews and focus group discussion, the practitioners deepened their thoughts on children’s peer interactions and saw peer interactions to be linked with learning around three main themes: learning through play; learning through gaining familiarity with others; and learning about having friends. My findings provide a picture of how the children’s peer interactions were understood by largely untrained practitioners, and how the complexity of children’s lived experiences remained hidden to the practitioners until they took part in the video-stimulated recall interviews; the latter opened up and deepened the practitioners thoughts about children’s peer interactions. This study differs from earlier studies in that it is based in Malaysia where the provision of group-based early childhood care and education services is still a relatively new social and educational endeavour staffed by largely unqualified practitioners. This has implications for future childcare training initiatives in Malaysia.</p>

Peer interactions among under three years old children in Malaysian childcare centres: A case study approach

<p>Research on infants’ and toddlers’ peer interactions in childcare centres shows many benefits for children’s social competence. With increasing participation of under-three year olds in group-based early childhood services worldwide, there is also growing interest in the role played by childcare adults in supporting children’s social competence. In the Malaysian context, where the number of childcare settings is growing rapidly, early childhood research remains limited and is non-existent within the field of understanding the complexity of infants’ and toddlers’ peer interactions. At the same time there has been a mounting discourse by Malaysian economists promoting the benefits of non-cognitive skills to a country, thus focussing attention on social skills, of which peer interactions are a form. This study opens up this under-researched field in Malaysia through three qualitative case studies – one in each of three childcare centres in the state of Selangor. Each case study involved individual semi-structured interviews with the childcare practitioners, video-recorded observations of the children’s peer interactions, and video-stimulated recall interviews. A focus group discussion was conducted too with all of the practitioners after that. The aim of the study was to examine how practitioners perceived peer interactions among children under three years old in their childcare centres, and the kinds of peer interactions that occurred among the children. Drawing on constructs from a range of social constructivist theoretical perspectives, the findings revealed that at the start of the study, the practitioners saw themselves as promoting peer interactions by facilitating group activities and managing interactions between children by responding to their conflicts. The observations of children’s peer interactions revealed complex negotiations by the children who were actively creating a sense of belonging and togetherness at their childcare centres like embracing the centre’s routines, and responding to the needs of others including through humour and laughter. In the process of these interactions, children exercised their agency and learned the skills of becoming socially competent participants in their centre. Through video-stimulated recall interviews and focus group discussion, the practitioners deepened their thoughts on children’s peer interactions and saw peer interactions to be linked with learning around three main themes: learning through play; learning through gaining familiarity with others; and learning about having friends. My findings provide a picture of how the children’s peer interactions were understood by largely untrained practitioners, and how the complexity of children’s lived experiences remained hidden to the practitioners until they took part in the video-stimulated recall interviews; the latter opened up and deepened the practitioners thoughts about children’s peer interactions. This study differs from earlier studies in that it is based in Malaysia where the provision of group-based early childhood care and education services is still a relatively new social and educational endeavour staffed by largely unqualified practitioners. This has implications for future childcare training initiatives in Malaysia.</p>

Sources of Students’ Difficulties with Proof By Contradiction

The literature on proof by contradiction (PBC) is nearly unanimous in claiming that this proof technique is “more difficult” for students than direct proof, and offers multiple hypotheses as to why this might be the case. To examine this claim and to evaluate some of the hypotheses, we analyzed student work on proof construction problems from homework and examinations in a university “Introduction to Proof” course taught by one of the authors. We also conducted stimulated-recall interviews with student volunteers probing their thought processes while solving these problems, and their views about PBC in general. Our results suggest that the knowledge resources students bring to bear on proof problems, and how these resources are activated, explain more of their “difficulties” than does the logical structure of the proof technique, at least for this population of students.

Students’ Self-Organization of the Learning Environment during a Blended Knowledge Creation Course

Learner-centered blended learning approaches, such as Knowledge Creation, emphasize the self-organizing characteristic of thought and action, and value the students’ autonomy and self-regulation during the engagement in collaborative learning tasks. In blended contexts, the students need to organize their learning paths within a complex environment, including multiple online and offline learning spaces. This process of self-organization during courses based on the Knowledge Creation approach is currently an overlooked topic of research. The present case study is aimed at addressing this research gap by providing an in-depth understanding of the collaborative self-organization of a group of five undergraduate students participating in an interdisciplinary media design course. The course was designed according to the Knowledge Creation approach and was carried out before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The dialogical theory of the chronotope and the theory of cultural models constitute the main theoretical tools for the research. We used qualitative methods inspired by ethnography, including participant observation, in addition to the collection and analysis of audio-visual records, stimulated recall interviews, and learning diaries completed by the students. The findings show that the group self-organization changed across different phases of the collaborative task and involved the development of specific practices of self-organization. Cultural models associated with the task contributed to determine the students’ choices related to self-organization.

Nursing students’ development of using physical assessment in clinical rotation—a stimulated recall study

Background The overall aim of this study was to explore third-year bachelor nursing students’ stimulated recall reflections on their physical assessment competence development. The choice of learning strategies in nursing education seems to have great impact on nursing students’ use of physical assessment skills while in clinical rotation. There is a need to explore nursing students’ learning processes related to the use of physical assessments. Methods Explorative qualitative design using a triangulation of data collection methods. Nine final-year nursing students’ physical assessment performances during patient encounters were audio-taped and observed. Shortly after, an individual stimulated recall interview based on the audio-recorded patient encounter and observation notes was conducted. A two-fold analysis was conducted: 1) analysis of students’ performed assessments, and 2) a meaning condensation analysis of the stimulated recall interviews. Results 1) Students’ assessments shifted from a checklist approach to a symptom-based approach, and they emphasized conversation as part of their assessments. 2) Through the stimulated recall interviews, students described reasons for using physical assessments in patient encounters, how the learning environment facilitated or hindered their use of physical assessments, and their own learning strategies. Conclusions Findings contribute a novel, in-depth description of what influenced nursing students’ learning processes of using physical assessment during clinical rotation. This study reveals the importance of designing and implementing learning activities in practical and theoretical courses to support and strengthen students’ learning processes. Further, findings suggest that stimulated recall as a reflective practice should be used systematically to enhance clinical reasoning skills and thus provide deep learning. A more targeted course design for physical assessment— building on and emphasizing nursing students’ prior knowledge and competence—may lead to more confident registered nurses and promote patient safety in different health care contexts.

Relationen mellan lärares intentioner och deras respons till elever

Formative feedback has the potential to support student learning and performance. However, teachers sometimes have difficulties realizing their intentions with formative feedback when responding to students’ questions or solutions. If the actual response provided does not agree with the teacher’s intentions, the formative potential may be diminished or lost. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate whether teachers themselves are able to identify the correspondence between their stated intentions and their actual response to students. Four teachers participated in the study by responding to the mathematical reasoning performed by twelve students in grades 4-5 (the feedback situations were recorded) and then taking part in stimulated-recall interviews. The results show that the teachers were able to identify certain instances of correspondence, and/or differences, between their intentions and how they acted in the feedback situations. The differences identified by the teachers were justified based on the teachers’ individual beliefs – for instance, the belief that some mathematical methods belong to certain grade levels and should not be taught in advance – or on concerns about how the students would react.

Why Keep Silent Online? Voices from Stay-at-home Postgraduate Students

Online classroom silence is an overlooked site of research irrespective of the growing popularity of online teaching in today’s education. Against this background, this study showcases why a group of postgraduate students keep silent in their online classes through classroom observation, stimulated recall interviews and in-depth interviews. Reasons found are classified into three categories: the peculiarity of online class, the uniqueness of postgraduate academic lesson, and other general reasons resembling the ones in the traditional classroom. In addition, these factors are found to be interconnected and sometimes exerting both positive and negative effects; unexpectedly, the factor of ‘losing face’, contrary to previous studies, is trivial in contributing to postgraduate students’ online-classroom silence.