The different uses of the pronoun ‘we’ by EFL teachers in classroom interaction

The pronoun ‘we’ is understood only to refer to the first-person plural. In fact, the pronoun ‘we’ can also refer to other references. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the different uses of the pronoun ‘we’ by EFL teachers in classroom interaction. This study employed a qualitative approach by using three instruments: observation, audio-recorder, and interview in collecting the data. The subjects of this research are two English teachers and the second-grade students at a vocational high school in Makassar. The data were analyzed by formulating Miles et al.’s method of analysis. The result of this study shows that, in classroom interaction, the pronoun ‘we’ can refer to six distinct references: (1) ‘we’ that refers to speaker and more than one addressee, (2) ‘we’ that refers to speaker and more than one-third party, (3) ‘we’ that refers to speaker and indefinite group, (4) ‘we’ that indicates ‘you’, (5) ‘we’ that indicates ‘I’, and (6) ‘we’ that indicates “they”. From the interviews, the researchers found that both teachers have different reasons for using the pronoun ‘we’ in classroom interaction. The first teacher intends to use the pronoun to help him create an enjoyable learning environment and establish better relationships with the students. In contrast, the other teacher uses the pronoun ‘we’ to show politeness to the students. Despite the differences, they both seem to have the same intention of creating a positive learning environment.

Anthropomorphizing malware, bots, and servers with human-like images and dialogues: the emotional design effects in a multimedia learning environment

Emotional design refers to imbuing a multimedia learning environment with design attributes that promote learners’ positive affect and motivation to enhance learning. One such feature is anthropomorphism, in which human-like attributes are infused into learning elements in a multimedia learning environment. This study examines the affective, motivational, and cognitive effects of incorporating cute and funny human-like images and dialogues into learning objects depicting malware, bots, and servers in an animation conveying a lesson on how a distributed denial-of-service attack occurs. A between-subjects online experiment was conducted in which undergraduates from a large Asian university (n = 70) engaged with either the anthropomorphized or non-anthropomorphized multimedia lesson. The findings partially supported the anthropomorphism effects on learners’ affective-motivational states insofar as the anthropomorphized multimedia lesson evoked a significantly greater change of positive affect but did not differently affect intrinsic motivation and learning outcome than the non-anthropomorphized version. Concerning cognitive load, anthropomorphism led to significantly lower perceived difficulty regarding the learning topic (intrinsic load), which conforms with most emotional design findings. There was a marginal trend in which learners engaged longer with the anthropomorphized than the non-anthropomorphized multimedia lesson. This study offers insights on anthropomorphism in multimedia learning that extends to cultural factors unique to Asian learners and information technology subject domain. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed through the lens of cognitive-affective theory of learning with media, integrated cognitive affective model of learning with multimedia, and cognitive load theory. Future directions concerning anthropomorphism research in the multimedia learning context are addressed in this paper.