Listening to voices of self : digital journaling among gifted young adolescents

The lives of gifted young adolescents are often subject to adult-generated and expert narratives that can impact a developing sense of self. However, opportunities for gifted young adolescents to represent themselves as informants can emerge through digital forms of qualitative research. This paper reports on the value of digital writing of journal entries, delivered by email to a researcher over several months, as an alternative to face-to-face interviews. Journaling methods combined with techniques of 'listening for voices' can support young adolescents in generating their own multi-vocal narratives of self. This method capturing self-narratives in email form has the potential to produce rich understandings of individual young adolescents' self-constructions.

Semantic oscillations : encoding context and structure in complex valued holographic vectors

In computational linguistics, information retrieval and applied cognition, words and concepts are often represented as vectors in high dimensional spaces computed from a corpus of text. These high dimensional spaces are often referred to as Semantic Spaces. We describe a novel and efficient approach to computing these semantic spaces via the use of complex valued vector representations. We report on the practical implementation of the proposed method and some associated experiments. We also briefly discuss how the proposed system relates to previous theoretical work in Information Retrieval and Quantum Mechanics and how the notions of probability, logic and geometry are integrated within a single Hilbert space representation. In this sense the proposed system has more general application and gives rise to a variety of opportunities for future research.

Talking the talk : oracy demands in first year university assessment tasks

With more constructivist approaches to learning in higher education and more value on teamwork skills, students’ oracy (speaking and listening) features more prominently in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The paper reports on a study of two first-year Australian university courses in disciplines with explicit industry orientations and high proportions of international students. Drawing on classroom observations and interviews with the lecturers, this paper investigates their pedagogical designs on oracy and the oracy demands of their assessment tasks. The study found that talk-based assessment tasks (a group project and a group oral presentation) featured in both courses but the two courses treated students’ oracy differently: as product or process. The contrast between the two assessment designs explicates issues around EAL student needs, authentic links to industry, the provenance of criteria used to assess performance, perceptions about the relevance of talk and the ‘hidden assessment’ of oracy.

High-challenge teaching for senior English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners in times of change

This paper will present a brief overview of the recent shifts within English and EAL/D (English as an additional language/dialect) curriculum documents and their focus on critical literacy, using the Queensland context as a case in point. The English syllabus landscape in Queensland has continued to morph in recent years. From 2002 to 2009, teachers of senior English and English as an Additional Language (EAL/D) have witnessed no less than four separate syllabus documents that impact on their daily work. The Australian Curriculum, when finally implemented, will also require teachers to navigate and grapple with its particular obligations and affordances. The combined effect of the shifts and tensions between recent policy documents has led to confusion about exactly how to cater for EAL/D learners in mainstream English. We discuss the possible effects of this on teachers as the agents of policy implementation and argue that in spite of such contradictions, EAL/D teachers can productively use syllabus frameworks to craft pedagogy to cater for their EAL/D learners’ language and literacy needs. Following this, we present aspects of the teaching practice of four teachers of senior EAL/D, who provide intellectually-engaging, critical literacy pedagogy that takes into account the language proficiency level of their learners, within the required curriculum. Such practice provides teachers with valuable pedagogic possibilities to meet EAL/D learners’ needs within continually varying policy terrain.

English language study abroad program : an investigation of Hong Kong pre-service teachers’ experiences of a language immersion program

There has been minimal research focused on short-term study abroad language immersion programs, in particular, with home-stay families. The importance of authentic intercultural experience is increasingly clear and was acknowledged as central to the process of language learning (Liddicoat, 2004). In Hong Kong, education programs for pre-service language teachers have significantly emphasised language and intercultural training through short-term study abroad, and these short overseas language immersion courses have become a compulsory component for teacher training (Bodycott & Crew, 2001) in the last decade. This study aims to investigate eight Hong Kong pre-service teachers’ and their home-stay families’ experiences of a short-term (two months) language immersion program in Australia. The focus is on listening to commentaries concerning the development of communicative competence, intercultural competence and professional growth during the out-of-class study abroad experience. The conceptual framework adopted in this study views language and intercultural learning from social constructivist perspectives. Central to this framing is the notion that the internalisation of higher mental functions involves the transfer from the inter-psychological to the intra-psychological plane, that is, a progression process from the socially supported to individually controlled performance. From this perspective, language serves as a way to communicate about, and in relation to, actions and experience. Three research questions were addressed and studied through qualitative methodology. 1. How do the pre-service teachers and their home-stay families perceive the out-of-class component of the program in terms of opportunities for the development of language proficiency and communicative competence? 2. How do the pre-service teachers and their home-stay families perceive the out-of-class component of the program in terms of the development of intercultural competence? 3. How do the pre-service teachers and home-stay families perceive the outof- class component of the program in terms of teachers’ professional growth? Data were generated from multiple data collection methods and analysed through thematic analysis from both a “bottom up” and “top down” approach. The study showed that the pre-service teachers perceived that the immersion program influenced, to varying degrees, their language proficiency, communication and intercultural awareness, as well as their self-awareness and professional growth. These pre-service teachers believed that effective language learning centres on active engagement in the target language community. A mismatch between the views and evaluations of the two groups – the pre-service teachers and the home-stay family members – provides some evidence of misalignments in terms of expectations and perceptions of each other’s roles and responsibilities. The study has highlighted challenges encountered, and provided suggestions for ways of meeting these challenges. The inclusion in the study of the home-stay families’ perceptions and commentaries provided insights, which can inform program development. There is clearly further work to be done in terms of predeparture orientation and preparation, not only for the main participants themselves, the students, but also for the host families.

Cracking the language code : NAPLAN numeracy tests in years 7 and 9

Focusing on the use of language is a crucial strategy in good mathematics teaching and a teacher’s guidance can assist students to master the language of mathematics. This article discusses the statements with reference to recent year 7 and 9 NAPLAN numeracy tests. It draws the readers’ attention to the complexities of language in the field of mathematics. Although this article refers to NAPLAN numeracy tests it also offers advice about good teaching practice.

Interactional competence in a paired speaking test : features salient to raters

Paired speaking tests are now commonly used in both high-stakes testing and classroom assessment contexts. The co-construction of discourse by candidates is regarded as a strength of paired speaking tests, as candidates have the opportunity to display a wider range of interactional competencies, including turn taking, initiating topics and engaging in extended discourse with a partner, rather than an examiner. However, the impact of the interlocutor in such jointly negotiated discourse and the implications for assessing interactional competence are areas of concern. This article reports on the features of interactional competence that were salient to four trained raters of 12 paired speaking tests through the analysis of rater notes, stimulated verbal recalls and rater discussions. Findings enabled the identification of features of the performance noted by raters when awarding scores for interactional competence, and the particular features associated with higher and lower scores. A number of these features were seen by the raters as mutual achievements, which raises the issue of the extent to which it is possible to assess individual contributions to the co-constructed performance. The findings have implications for defining the construct of interactional competence in paired speaking tests and operationalising this in rating scales.

Whole-proteome phylogeny of large dsDNA viruses and parvoviruses through a composition vector method related to dynamical language model

Background The vast sequence divergence among different virus groups has presented a great challenge to alignment-based analysis of virus phylogeny. Due to the problems caused by the uncertainty in alignment, existing tools for phylogenetic analysis based on multiple alignment could not be directly applied to the whole-genome comparison and phylogenomic studies of viruses. There has been a growing interest in alignment-free methods for phylogenetic analysis using complete genome data. Among the alignment-free methods, a dynamical language (DL) method proposed by our group has successfully been applied to the phylogenetic analysis of bacteria and chloroplast genomes. Results In this paper, the DL method is used to analyze the whole-proteome phylogeny of 124 large dsDNA viruses and 30 parvoviruses, two data sets with large difference in genome size. The trees from our analyses are in good agreement to the latest classification of large dsDNA viruses and parvoviruses by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Conclusions The present method provides a new way for recovering the phylogeny of large dsDNA viruses and parvoviruses, and also some insights on the affiliation of a number of unclassified viruses. In comparison, some alignment-free methods such as the CV Tree method can be used for recovering the phylogeny of large dsDNA viruses, but they are not suitable for resolving the phylogeny of parvoviruses with a much smaller genome size.

Reflections, successes and pitfalls of coordinating online discussion forums in a foreign language

The advent of e-learning has seen the adaptation and use of a plethora of educational techniques. Of these, online discussion forums have met with success and been used widely in both undergraduate and postgraduate education. The authors of this paper, having previously used online discussion forums in the postgraduate arena with success, adopted this approach for the design and subsequent delivery of a learning and teaching subject. This learning and teaching subject, however, was part of an international collaboration and designed for nurse academics in another country – Vietnam. With the nursing curriculum in Vietnam currently moving to adopt a competency based approach, two learning and teaching subjects were designed by an Australian university for Vietnamese nurse academics. Subject materials constituted a DVD which arrived by post and access to an online platform. Assessment for the subject included (but was not limited to) mandatory participation in online discussion with the other nurse academics enrolled in the subject. The purpose behind the online discussion was to generate discourse between the Vietnamese nurse academics located across Vietnam. Consequently the online discussions occurred in both Vietnamese and English; the Australian academic moderating the discussion did so in Australia with a Vietnamese translator. For the Australian University delivering this subject the difference between this and past online discussions were twofold: delivery was in a foreign language; and the teaching experience of the Vietnamese nurse teachers was mixed and frequently very limited. This paper will provide a discussion addressing the design of an online learning environment for foreign correspondents, the resources and translation required to maximise the success of the online discussion, the lessons learnt and consequent changes made, as well as the rationale of delivering complex content in a foreign language. While specifically addressing the first iteration of the first learning module designed, this paper will also address subsequent changes made for the second iteration of the first module and comment on their success. While a translator is clearly a key component of success, the elements of simplicity and clarity in hand with supportive online moderation must not be overlooked.

High-Order Concept Associations Mining and Inferential Language Modeling for Online Review Spam Detection

Despite many incidents about fake online consumer reviews have been reported, very few studies have been conducted to date to examine the trustworthiness of online consumer reviews. One of the reasons is the lack of an effective computational method to separate the untruthful reviews (i.e., spam) from the legitimate ones (i.e., ham) given the fact that prominent spam features are often missing in online reviews. The main contribution of our research work is the development of a novel review spam detection method which is underpinned by an unsupervised inferential language modeling framework. Another contribution of this work is the development of a high-order concept association mining method which provides the essential term association knowledge to bootstrap the performance for untruthful review detection. Our experimental results confirm that the proposed inferential language model equipped with high-order concept association knowledge is effective in untruthful review detection when compared with other baseline methods.

Assessment policy change in relation to English language teaching and learning in China : a study of perspectives from two universities

In response to concerns about the quality of English Language Learning (ELL) education at tertiary level, the Chinese Ministry of Education (CMoE) launched the College English Reform Program (CERP) in 2004. By means of a press release (CMoE, 2005) and a guideline document titled College English Curriculum Requirements (CECR) (CMoE, 2007), the CERP proposed two major changes to the College English assessment policy, which were: (1) the shift to optional status for the compulsory external test, the College English Test Band 4 (CET4); and (2) the incorporation of formative assessment into the existing summative assessment framework. This study investigated the interactions between the College English assessment policy change, the theoretical underpinnings, and the assessment practices within two Chinese universities (one Key University and one Non-Key University). It adopted a sociocultural theoretical perspective to examine the implementation process as experienced by local actors of institutional and classroom levels. Systematic data analysis using a constant comparative method (Merriam, 1998) revealed that contextual factors and implementation issues did not lead to significant differences in the two cases. Lack of training in assessment and the sociocultural factors such as the traditional emphasis on the product of learning and hierarchical teacher/students relationship are decisive and responsible for the limited effect of the reform.

A Virtual Evaluation Track for Cross Language Link Discovery

The Wikipedia has become the most popular online source of encyclopedic information. The English Wikipedia collection, as well as some other languages collections, is extensively linked. However, as a multilingual collection the Wikipedia is only very weakly linked. There are few cross-language links or cross-dialect links (see, for example, Chinese dialects). In order to link the multilingual-Wikipedia as a single collection, automated cross language link discovery systems are needed – systems that identify anchor-texts in one language and targets in another. The evaluation of Link Discovery approaches within the English version of the Wikipedia has been examined in the INEX Link the-Wiki track since 2007, whilst both CLEF and NTCIR emphasized the investigation and the evaluation of cross-language information retrieval. In this position paper we propose a new virtual evaluation track: Cross Language Link Discovery (CLLD). The track will initially examine cross language linking of Wikipedia articles. This virtual track will not be tied to any one forum; instead we hope it can be connected to each of (at least): CLEF, NTCIR, and INEX as it will cover ground currently studied by each. The aim is to establish a virtual evaluation environment supporting continuous assessment and evaluation, and a forum for the exchange of research ideas. It will be free from the difficulties of scheduling and synchronizing groups of collaborating researchers and alleviate the necessity to travel across the globe in order to share knowledge. We aim to electronically publish peer-reviewed publications arising from CLLD in a similar fashion: online, with open access, and without fixed submission deadlines.