A Study Focusing on Applying Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) Methods into English Vocabulary Teaching for EFL Learners

To solve the problem of Chinese EFL students’ passive and ineffective vocabulary learning, task-based language teaching (TBLT) methods were introduced to English classes at a university. With TBLT, students interacted with each other by using English, especially English words learnt, in order to fulfil the tasks designed by teachers. Based on second language acquisition theories, students were able to understand input and produce output during this process. This paper focuses on using TBLT in English vocabulary teaching in three non-English major classes of a Chinese university, involving the use of some word games. The word games’ features, organization, and a skill set built through those games, will be discussed. In terms of methodology, an online questionnaire survey was conducted among 93 university students from the three classes. Also, results of the students’ before-task and after-task word quizzes on Moodle platform and exam paper results were analysed. The research findings showed that students enjoyed playing word games in the English class and benefitted from it, in terms of language development and building skills. This paper recommends teachers to use TBLT in English vocabulary teaching and learning, as it is practical and can assist in EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition.

Factor analysis approach to investigate the prevalence of stress among Indian students during COVID 19 pandemic

Objective: Since December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a considerable threat with its associated high mortality, infection, and hazard of physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual stress (WHO, 2020). A large number of students are affected due to a chronic break from classroom academic activities, the pressure of being hired for an internship or final placement and staying at home. The main focus of this learning is to know the stressors of graduate and post-graduate Indian students and their major hurdles during the COVID-19 lockdown. Further, the study aims to facilitate a proposed model of training, by combining 7 psychosocial variables of emotional resilience which might empower the students to cater to stressors and improve personal, academic, and professional effectiveness (Chen et.al, 2020; Horesh et.al, 2020) Methods: Using a convenience method, an internet survey of the 6-item COVID-19 Student Stress Questionnaire (CSSQ) (modified version Zurlo et.al, 2020) was conducted on students across India. together with their demographic details, the participants also reported their study patterns and challenges during their confinement period. The statistical scores for the responses were calculated and also the demographic variables were analyzed using the factor analysis technique. (Ahorsu et. al,2020) Findings, Discussion, and implications: The findings suggest that self-awareness, self-regulation, mental agility, optimism, self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and psychological safety may be the important emotional resilience to be developed among the Indian students to cope with physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual stressors confronted by them during COVID 19 pandemic to increase personal and professional effectiveness (Maria et.al, 2020, Zurlo et.al. 2017) Conclusion: The study has several practical implications for counselling psychologists, academicians, parents, life coaches handling youth and mental health workers related to the graduate and post-graduate education sector (Taylor et.al, 2020; Sahu et.al, 2020).

Challenges facing higher education institutions in Chile in training learners in entrepreneurship and the future of work. Chile a Case Study

This research article aims to tackle the many challenges that the academic communities all over the country should face and resolved with reference to several items such as the introduction into new methodologies. The strategies to overcome our weakness and the facilities which should be made available to become highly competitive and therefore to contribute to our nation and citizens. The main ideas discussed in this article are the result of several decades of doing both research and lecturing for both undergraduate and the postgraduate levels. For a rather long period of time, we have been through a critical state and in a short period of time, senior professors and the whole academic staff have been working online and several crucial activities have shown a growing state of deterioration. Some experimental activities have been declared non-essential due to this biological crisis and therefore, these duties will have to be redefined soon. In agreement with the above reflections, we may anticipate the need for a new strategy and methodology to fulfil the requirements to achieve the knowledge and experience needed to become a highly qualify professional and /or a member of the academic community in all the levels of the undergraduate and postgraduate studies. In the first place, we must be aware of our weakness and strengths. Once the problems have been defined clearly, the next step of our article will be based upon the evidence at our disposal. Chile as a country, for a rather long time, has based its economy on exporting minerals (metallic and non-metallic) and non-renewable resources. The above-mentioned strategy adopted by the country for many decades, has proved to be the wrong approach when compare with the status of developed countries in the United States of America, Europe, and Asia. We must, then proceed to a complete change of paradigm. We have formidable challenges in front of us and it is our main duty to deal with this rather complex scenario. As a result, we need to include in this research article some additional items such the direction of new studies, some implications, and contributions to illustrate the readers with a more precise and comprehensive approach. In our view, we must move from the stage of diagnosis to that of the action to reach a reasonable position in the world economy. Without any doubt a highly qualified and well recognized of education is a key factor in our approach. Finally, but not at last, we discuss the concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship for our students and professionals.

Micro-Compass quality assurance short programme: Designing effective quality assurance systems in HE Institutions in Bangladesh

Due to increased demand for quality education worldwide, the Higher education sector globally has been undergoing an unprecedented level of changes over the past several decades. These result in increased public expectations towards the institutions’ provision, new tasks and responsibilities for scholars and administrators, new modes of knowledge production and transfer. The abundance of individual and organisational change processes requires higher education institutions to rethink the quality of their provision in higher education. This study aims to examine the importance of the Fundamental of Quality Assurance of Higher Education Sector and the influence of a short training programme on quality assurance in developing excellence in education. Micro-CQAP (micro compass quality assurance programme) provides direction and focus that is based on evidence, appraisal, and experience. The study is based on the recent venture by the authors of this study providing a 5-days training programme to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University (BSMRMU) and its impact on their overall quality assurance system within the university. The outcome of the training programme and findings of this study suggest that a short training programme on quality assurance within the institution enhances the overall understanding of Quality Assurance and help to implement it in practice more effectively and efficiently. The short programme was based on providing basic knowledge about what quality in higher education is, where it comes from, why quality assurance should & must be carried out, and how the process can be set up and managed at Higher Education institutions. This study is original as it was based on the experience, observations and feedback received after conducting the training programme from the participants. It has significant implications for the bother Higher Education Institutions, Government, and various stakeholders in Bangladesh.

Quality in Higher Education: The Case of National Economics University

Continuous quality improvement of service is a crucial factor for the existence and development of educational institutions. Clarifying and judging the importance of the service’s quality factors are essential elements of quality improvement. The quality of the training services provided by universities in Vietnam have been examined by numerous pieces of research. They focused on a group of subjects, a branch of the university, a major, and assessment of student satisfaction with the use of a toolkit introduced by the MoET or by a school of the university. From these foundations, the purpose of this research is to identify the quality factors of the training service provided by the National Economics University (NEU) as a whole. Education quality is a complex concept and cannot easily be assessed by only one indicator. However, because of the timeframe and the lack of finance, we examined the service quality of NEU from the student perspective by assessing their satisfaction using the SERVQUAL model. The data collection was done by through an online survey. The empirical analysis resulted in 5 factors influencing the quality of the service, assurance, reliability, responsiveness, empathy, and tangibles. From these factors, three suggestions were made for improving the quality of the service: adjusting course structures; retraining communication skills for office staff; upgrading Wi-Fi/internet connection; optimize physical facilities usage. The research findings also have social significance, as empathy was identified as a quality factor. At the same time, the practical implications proposed for NEU’s governors have equal value for state-owned universities in general.

The transformation framework The role security in the global education system

This article analyses the role of Global Education System (GES) and proposes the Applied Holistic Mathematical Model for GES (AHMM4GES). The AHMM4GES is based on many years of research on business & educational transformations, Artificial Intelligence (AI), applied mathematics, software modelling, business & organizational engineering, skills & educational systems, financial analysis, security and enterprise architecture. The used research methodology is based on the author’s authentic mixed research method that is supported by a mainly qualitative reasoning module. AHMM4GES’s formalism mimics the human brain, by using empirical processes that are based on heuristics. The AHMM4GES is used to implement a decision-making system (or an expert system) to support a GES and uses a behaviour-driven development environment that can be easily adopted by any organization. The development environment can be used by any team member without any prior computer sciences qualifications. The AHMM4GES is used to estimate the Role of AI based Security in GES’s (RAISGES) context and tries to estimate the roles of the giants in this domain, like the USA, China, and India; and what would be the real role of the European Union and France. The uniqueness and originality of this research is that the AHMM4GES promotes a holistic unbundling process, the alignment of transformation strategies to support GES’ evolution. For a successful integration of AHMM4GES in projects, the manager’s profile, education, skills and role are crucial, where his decisions are supported by the selection, implementation and processing of critical success factors. The main implication is a systemic approach that is the optimal to integrate an RAI4GES.

Ineffective academic deans in public universities in Ghana: A case approach

This paper sought to find out the reasons why in the view of faculty members and officers, some academic Deans in public universities are ineffective leaders. Faculty members and officers of some faculties and schools in University of Cape Coast were requested to first say why in their view; some Deans in University of Cape Coast turn out to be ineffective leaders. Second, they were also requested to give their views on the consequences of leadership failure. Using a qualitative design, the investigators sampled eight (8) faculty members and four (4) faculty officers purposively from four Faculties in University of Cape Coast. Interviewees were asked to consider their own Deans first. A thematic narrative analysis was used to analyse data from the interviews and reported. The results showed that Deans fail due to poor posture, poor interpersonal skill, unclear vision and direction and communication failure. The paper has shown that the consequences of a Dean’s failure affect individual members within the faculty, and create disaffection thus, affecting organisational output. It was therefore recommended that the University Council and Management should consider reviewing the current policy of voting deans into office if it even calls for amendments in the 2016 Statute of the University.

Postgraduate supervision: A practical reflection on how to support students’ engagement

The quality of postgraduate education largely depends on effective supervision of postgraduate students. Nowadays, the supervisory role has become more challenging due to different ethnic, cultural, political, economic, linguistic, and educational backgrounds of postgraduate students where their attraction and retention are paramount for educational institutions. Students’ satisfaction balancing studies and other interest is also important during their postgraduate learning experience and supervision is challenged to assist towards this direction as well. Literature about postgraduate supervision has focused on describing the ever-lengthening lists of functions that must be carried out. The present study, through a critical literature review methodology and reflection upon personal practice, explores how postgraduate supervisors can support & engage students with their studies balancing other demands and interests, what are the challenges supervising international students, and how, the supervisory team can manage internal conflicts, function better and more efficiently. The key conclusions show that facilitating development of skills important for students’ ’studies and lives, bridging studies and other demands /interests together, rewarding students’ success, responding to cultural and educational differences & personal interests, and finding ways all members of the supervisory team to work more effectively can lead to more efficient and effective postgraduate supervision.

Internationalisation of the curriculum: Challenges & opportunities

Internationalized curriculum development is critical to all institutions aiming to approach internationalisation coherently. Research on the internationalisation of the curriculum (IoC) focuses on the curriculum concept encompassing all aspects of learning and teaching (Kemmis & Fitzclarence, 1991). It works at formal, hidden and informal levels. The present work is a critical review of a research piece opinion by Sue Robson (2015) ‘Internationalisation of the Curriculum: Challenges and opportunities’ emphasising the contribution to this matter of the Higher Education Academy (HEA internationalisation framework but also showing what is missing and needs to take place concluding that a more comprehensive framework would have better-added value for internationalising higher education

Significance of professional development of education leaders: Evidence from literature review

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the literature on the professional development of educational administrators in the world, based on empirical and theoretical evidence with special reference to educational administrators and school principals in several countries. Design/Methodology: An interpretative analysis on literature covering professional development, pre-service training, in-service training programmes, mentoring, models of education leaders, coaching and the history of education in Sri Lanka and also the background information of the Education Administrative Service in Sri Lanka is carried out. Findings: Training and professional development date back to several centuries and it was found that the influence of imperialists, mainly the British was dominant in the Sri Lankan modern education system and professional development programmes. Sri Lanka continues to implement training and development with the least changes in contents and scopes compared to the past. It was further found that authorities paid little attention to the effectiveness of the training and development but rather were concerned about the compliance requirements. At present, education leaders undergo training programmes, and improvements in leaders are also seen at varying degrees. The study finds that educational leaders who are good at leadership skills and competencies produce better results in terms of both students’ performances and school management. However, though the use of technology in training was trivial, the need for more sophisticated, comprehensive, and sustainable training for educational leaders for better performance is highlighted. Practical implications: Provision of training and development is perceived by authorities as a practice and not as a key driver of improving school performance and effective management. The outcome of the study can be used to further enhance and implement professional development and training programmes for educational leaders with an outcome-oriented approach. Therefore, the findings will help lay a foundation for policymaking and their implementation can be broadened to enhance the quality of education in Sri Lanka.