Taking an (Inter)cultural View of Students with Disabilities to Promote Inclusive Practices Within the TESOL Field

Considering the TESOL field's global presence, much more can be done to prepare TESOL practitioners to teach inclusively, particularly with regard for students with disabilities, and in line with international policy. This chapter begins by conceptualizing disability and inclusive education before providing an overview of concerns related to TESOL teacher training for inclusive practices. Complicating cognitive and affective factors commonly experienced by students with specific learning difficulties (SpLDs) are briefly outlined. The author then advocates for adopting a social justice definition of culture to be adopted within the field and provides three sets of discussion/reflection questions to help TESOL practitioners connect their understanding of existing models of cultural competence and language acquisition with an understanding of how students with disabilities may experience language learning. The chapter concludes by contemplating some impending challenges and potential solutions for securing inclusive education as a human right within and across the field.

Exploring Affective and Cognitive Measurements in Global Online Learning

The chapter tries to identify cognitive and affective factors that affect learners' online learning. Based on a comprehensive review of the theories and frameworks, constructs related to cognitive and affective performance were identified which further serve as the bases for the development of two instruments: cognitive measurement in online learning and affective measurement in online learning. The endeavor is significant at both theoretical and practical levels. Theoretically, the chapter contributes to the understanding of the factors (cognitive and affective) that affect online learning by revealing the underlying constructs in online environment. Practically, it provides educators with the instruments that can be used to measure cognitive and affective aspects in online learning. Finally, the recommendations are made in relation to the use of the instruments.

Error Analysis of College Students’ Spoken English

Based on the theory of Error Analysis, this thesis records the production of spoken English of first year college students of Northwestern Polytechnical University as samples. After listening to the recorder repeatedly and carefully, the author classifies and describes the errors found in the corpus, investigates the causes of these errors and provides solutions to these problems. It is found that there are errors of performance, phonological errors, lexical errors, grammatical errors and pragmatic errors in this study. Reasons for these errors can be explained from the perspectives of interlingual transfer, intralingual interference, cognitive and affective factors, and communicative strategies. Accordingly, some countermeasures could be taken to effectively decrease errors.

Analysis of Gender Differences in Digital Game-Based Language Learning for Thai Language Learning Affection, Cognition and Progress Performance

This study aimed to use a Shaking Fun App with learning assessment and ranking learning as a teaching tool to allow Thai learning beginners to have digital game-style language learning, and to explore the gender differences in the perception of the cognitive and affective factors of the participants and the performance of gameplay progress based on the cognitive-affective theory of learning with media and embodying learning theory. In this study, a total of 246 Thai language learning beginners taking basic Thai (I) courses in 2 universities and 1 university of science and technology in northern Taiwan were invited to participate in the study. After those who dropped out were deducted and invalid data was deleted, there were 202 effective study participants including 82 males (40.6%) and 120 females (59.4%), and the effective recovery rate was 82.1%. After the reliability and validity analyses with SPSS 23.0, and the item analysis with AMOS 20.0, the gender differences were analyzed. The results showed that: there were indeed significant differences in participants of different genders in terms of gameplay flow, test anxiety and gameplay progress performance, but there was no significant difference in the continuance gameplay intention. In addition, using the Shaking Fun App for multiple weeks of DGBLL can indeed help learners to improve their game performance (Thai grammar).

Predictors of Changes in Travel Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Tourists’ Personalities

This study investigates travel behavior and psychosocial factors that influence it during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a cross-sectional study, using an online survey, we examined changes in travel behavior and preferences after lifting travel restrictions, and how these changes were influenced by exposure to COVID-19, COVID-19 travel-related risk and severity, personality, fear of travel, coping, and self-efficacy appraisals in the Romanian population. Our results showed that participants traveled less in the pandemic year than the year before—especially group and foreign travel—yet more participants reported individual traveling in their home county during the pandemic period. Distinct types of exposure to COVID-19 risk, as well as cognitive and affective factors, were related to travel behavior and preferences. However, fun-seeking personality was the only major predictor of travel intention, while fear of travel was the only predictor of travel avoidance. Instead, people traveled more cautiously when they perceived more risk of infection at the destination, and had higher levels of fear of travel, but also a high sense of efficacy in controlling the infection and problem-solving capacity. The results suggest that specific information about COVID-19, coping mechanisms, fear of travel, and neuropsychological personality traits may affect travel behavior in the pandemic period.

The More Insufficient, the More Avoidance? Cognitive and Affective Factors that Relates to Information Behaviours in Acute Risks

This study examines the relationship between cognitive and affective factors and people's information-seeking and -avoiding behaviours in acute risks with a 1,946-sample online survey conducted in February 2020, during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that perceived information insufficiency correlates negatively with information-seeking behaviour and there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between information insufficiency and avoidance behaviour. As for the risk-related cognitive factors, information seeking increases as perceived severity of risks rises, while information avoiding increases as perceived susceptibility rises. Perceived response efficacy positively correlates with information-seeking and negatively with information-avoidance behaviours. Preliminary results also indicated that different affective factors relate to information-seeking and avoidance behaviours differently.

A Meta-Analysis of Factors Related to Health Information Seeking: An Integration from Six Theoretical Frameworks

Prior studies have investigated the antecedents of Health Information Seeking (HIS) using different theoretical frameworks, whereas the inconsistencies in the reported findings warrant a more comprehensive synthesis of this body of knowledge. This meta-analysis identified 12 major antecedents of HIS from six widely used information seeking models examining HIS, developed an organizing framework that segmented current antecedents into cognitive, affective, sociocultural, and information carrier categories, and compared their associations with HIS by meta-analyzing 89 empirical studies ( N = 62,957). Results showed that seeking-related subjective norms and information utility yielded the strongest associations with HIS, whereas cognitive and affective factors demonstrated weaker associations with HIS. Illness types, information-seeking channels, and sampling methods significantly moderated the associations between some predictors and HIS. Implications and directions for future research were discussed.

UNDERSTANDING KRASHEN HYPOTHESIS OF SECOND LANGAUGE ACQUISITION: A CASE STUDY OF A POLYGLOT

This research focuses on a case of a polyglot. The objectives of the study were to describe how a plyglot acquires the languages related to three of Krashen Hypothesis regarding the acquisition vs learning, affective filter, and natural order hypothesis. The subject of this study was a an English teacher who is able to speak many foreign languages or polyglot. The instruments used in the study were observation, an interview and questionnaire. The findings showed that the way he gained all the foreign languages are acquisition in natural setting. In terms of affective filter hypothesis, the result revealed that the affective variables played a facilitative role in her SLA. In this case, the subject showed good characteristics of language learner, such as good langauge aptitude, high motivation, and cognitive and affective factors. As for the natural order hypothesis, she found it easy to learn new language, since it was relatively similar to her previous learned languages in term of grammar and structure. However, it is suggested to explore the other two Krashen hypothesis to complete the findings with more samples to get deeper understanding on polyglot phenomena.

Exploratory Study of Recent Trends in ELT Master’s Programs: Insights from the stakeholders

This article reports on a mixed-methods research study in five English Language Teaching Master’s programs in Colombia. The purpose was to identify research problems as well as the strategies of intervention that M.A candidates and alumni dealt with in their theses. This study identified prevalent research methods, techniques, and instruments. The data collection methods included documentary analysis, four focus groups with students, four informal talks with the faculty, four interviews with the coordinators of the programs, and surveys with graduate students, professors, thesis advisors and administrators of these programs. Results suggest a preference for action research on issues of language skills, curriculum design, cognitive and affective factors. Pedagogical innovations dealt with ICT, ELT methods, and language learning strategies. Another result indicated that program participants considered the master’s as the most enriching professional development opportunity they have had. This study makes a call to local and national governments to continue funding continued graduate education and to make it a policy independent of partisan agendas.