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Virtual Exchange (VE) in second language education refers to a technology-enabled, interactive, intercultural experience that is designed to increase learners' intercultural communicative competence and performance. In this paper the findings of a bilingual (English/Turkish), synchronous video communication project among 31 US and Turkish college students are presented. Thematic analysis was used in this study. The results show that the VE -- to a certain extent and similarly to other research studies -- achieves the learning objectives of not only increased cultural awareness and communicative competence about the target culture and language itself but also the growth of factual knowledge about diverse topics that the students are interested in learning. [For the complete volume, "Intelligent CALL, Granular Systems and Learner Data: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2022 (30th, Reykjavik, Iceland, August 17-19, 2022)," see ED624779.]

There is no doubt that telecollaboration currently plays an important role in foreign language learning and, not less so, in the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Guth (2020) highlighted how telecollaboration has rapidly evolved in the past years as an innovative approach, and how it has brought together a whole community of academics and researchers interested in the field. In this paper, a brief overview of the various presentations that took place in the EuroCALL Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Special Interest Group (SIG) Symposium is offered. The paper introduces four projects based on telecollaboration contextualised within an ESP classroom in higher education. The first one focuses on a collaborative debate project using English as a lingua franca; the second elaborates on improving learners' pragmatic skills through telecollaborative roleplays; the third describes an immersive Virtual Exchange (VE) aiming to foster the students' civic and entrepreneurial competence, while enhancing their intercultural communicative competence. The fourth project aimed at improving students' business communication and management skills in English in a multicultural environment. [For the complete volume, "Intelligent CALL, Granular Systems and Learner Data: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2022 (30th, Reykjavik, Iceland, August 17-19, 2022)," see ED624779.]

This document presents the proceedings of 16th Annual Research Forum held June 15, 2011, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included herein are the following 25 action research papers: (1) The Effects of Prompted Math Journaling on Algebra 1 Students' Achievement and Attitudes (Heidi I. Arnold); (2) Group Work and Attitude (Greg Bartley); (3) Assessing How Current Events Contribute to Student Learning Outcomes in a Civics and Economics Course (LaShunda Faison); (4) What is the Impact of Inquiry-Based Instruction in a Group Setting? (Jennifer Foreman); (5) Developing Oral Language Ability in the High School Spanish Classroom (Eleanor Fuller); (6) "There's an App for That:" A Study Using Apple iPads in a United States History Classroom (Emily R. Garcia); (7) Increasing Parent Involvement: Using Newsletters to Expand School-Home Communication (Meredith Horton); (8) Guided Discovery Learning with Collaborative Discourse (Chloe Johnson); (9) Multiple Types of Assessment and Learning Styles (Jill Klinepeter); (10) Recognizing and Understanding Irony (Cederick Moore); (11) The Use of Contextualized Listening Activities to Develop Listening Comprehension in the High School Spanish Classroom (John A. Mundell); (12) The Effects of Photograph Analysis on Students' Historical Thinking Skills (Anna Newman); (13) Effective Approaches for Teaching Irony in the High School English Classroom(Carmen Peek); (14) Inspiring Instrumental Genesis through Guided Reflection (Jacob Steven Perry); (15) Global Citizenship Education in Secondary Social Studies: Utilizing Global Newspapers to Help Students Identify Global Perspectives and Bias (Andrew R. Petrilli); (16) The Use of Authentic Materials in Developing Oral and Written Language Ability in the Secondary Spanish Classroom (Amy Plyler); (17) Teaching "Habits of Mind": Impact on Students' Mathematical Thinking and Problem Solving Self-Efficacy (Cayce Poindexter); (18) The Impact of Feedback on Student Confidence, Self-Efficacy, and Attitudes Toward Mathematics (Lauren Redman); (19) Understanding Students' Ability to Recognize Irony (Grace Rishel ); (20) Improving Student Achievement through Error Analysis (Lauren Schnepper); (21) Using Homework to Improve Students' Abilities to Self-Regulate (Brian A. Smith); (22) The Use of Food as a Context to Develop Cultural Awareness in the High School Spanish Classroom (Silvia Timmerding); (23) Teaching High School Students to Identify Irony and its Effects (Sarah Vroom); (24) Recasts, Elicitation, and Praise: Tools for Oral Language Production in the High School Spanish Class (Kenneth L. Wallace, Jr.); and (25) Music and Culture in the High School Spanish Classroom (Rachel Will). (Individual papers contain references.) [Abstract revised to meet ERIC guidelines.]

Globalization is an evolving concept characterized by economic, technological, social, and political dimensions. Vocational education and training (VET) practitioners and the VET system must make more conscious efforts to lead thinking about the social dimension of globalization. The mission of Australian VET today is largely couched in economic terms--to ensure a skilled work force capable of helping the country's industries become globally competitive. In Australia, much of the debate about globalization has focused on economics and technology, and the social and political dimensions of globalization have largely been side-stepped. The Australian education and training system has worked very hard to ensure that technology is pressed to the service of VET rather than falling for the trap of technological determinism. The challenge is not so much to invest in the technologies but to more quickly and effectively apply the technologies for the purposes of vocational learning and for using them to transact VET business. The following issues related to the social dimensions of globalization remain vitally important to the development and delivery of VET: access; Australian cultural identity; and community. Australia's VET practitioners and leaders must support a community-building purpose for VET and work to enhance the stock of social capital in their communities. (MN)

The paper presents the aims and the design of the international e-learning course for teacher training "International Project" / Internet and Competence to work on the Project"/IPC/, organized with students from the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" (Bulgaria) and universities from Germany, USA, Spain, Japan, Sweden and Poland (http://www.internationalproject-ipc.com/en/). The project has a long tradition and is developed in co-operation from university teachers by using different methods and approaches. The project is based on an inquiry-based learning. The topics of the student's investigations are connected with the school education and with the children's perspective on school, teaching and learning. Coached by university teachers and tutors the students work in many international groups using different research methods and web tools as wikis, chat forums or blogs. By working on topics selected from the teacher training curriculum the students improve their expertise related to the curriculum and develop awareness of cultural differences. At the end of the course the students from the different universities present the results of the comparative international research and do conclusions about the differences and similarities in the curriculum and the education in different countries and continents. The IPC project fosters the development of many competences for teacher students because of working and doing educational research in international team. [For the full proceedings, see ED622227.]

The chapter reports on a doctoral study exploring the complexity behind the separation of language and content within modern language degree programmes, placing particular focus on implications for students' development of criticality (Barnett, 1997) and intercultural competence (Byram, 1997). The study investigated implications of the division as experienced by German studies staff and students in two American and two British universities. The findings suggest that students who are prompted to critically reflect upon both the target language and the target culture have greater opportunities to develop into 'good' interculturalists in line with the view that students require an 'intercultural education' in order to maximise the benefits (Holmes, Bavieri, & Ganassin, 2015). [For the complete volume, "Innovative Language Teaching and Learning at University: Treasuring Languages," see ED604577.]

This volume includes four sections of the 2020 NORDSCI international conference proceedings: (1) Education and Educational Research; (2) Language and Linguistics; (3) Philosophy; and (4) Sociology and Healthcare. Education and Educational Research includes 15 papers covering the full spectrum of education, including history, sociology and economy of education, educational policy, strategy and technologies. This section also covers pedagogy and special education. Language and Linguistics includes 6 papers covering topics related to theoretical, literary and historical linguistics, as well as stylistics and philology. The Philosophy section includes 2 papers and covers the full spectrum of philosophy history, methods, foundation, society studies and the interpretation of philosophy. The Sociology and Healthcare section has 9 papers covering topics related to human society, social structures, and social change, healthcare systems and healthcare services. [Individual papers from the Education and Educational Research section of these proceedings are indexed in ERIC.]

This study measured changes in cultural awareness levels between two groups of US students in their third semester of a Spanish class. One group (experimental group) collaborated via Skype with a group of English language learners from a Colombian university and the other group (control group) did not. The experimental group met seven times during the semester to discuss a variety of cultural topics such as health care and gastronomy. The control group addressed the same topics by examining them among members of the same class. Both groups answered a pre and post self-awareness questionnaire. Mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed significant differences between the two groups. There was no change in scores from pretest to posttest for the control group, but scores in the trained group increased significantly. Students from the treatment group show substantial gains in skills, knowledge, and awareness of themselves in their interactions with others in one semester. [For the complete proceedings, see ED600837.]

Students with cultural and linguistic competence are needed to navigate an increasingly globalized society. This study collected and analyzed cultural awareness data from students who communicated with people of other cultures through Virtual Reality (VR) environments. Students from a private university in Japan engaged in directed communication with other students from the USA using an online virtual chat program. A questionnaire based on the Global Perspectives Inventory (GPI) was used by the students to self-report their views on the intercultural interactions and give a metacognitive analysis of their intercultural competence/knowledge of intercultural phenomena. In addition to directed communicative objectives, students were given the chance to engage in free conversation in the digital space created by the software to facilitate intercultural critical cultural awareness skills. Early findings show that students were able to improve critical cultural awareness through a virtual experience. [For the complete proceedings, see ED600837.]

"The EUROCALL Review" is EUROCALL's open access online scientific journal. Regular sections include: (1) Reports on EUROCALL Special Interest Groups: up-to-date information on SIG activities; (2) Projects: reports on on-going CALL or CALL-related R&D projects; (3) Recommended websites: reports and reviews of examples of good practice in language learning website development; (4) Research papers on CALL-related topics; (5) Research and Development papers on CALL-related topics; (6) Reflective Practice papers on CALL-related topics; and (7) Reviews of new books, CALL software, etc. This issue contains the following papers stemming from the INTENT conference on "Telecollaboration in University Foreign Language Education" held at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of León, Spain, on 14 February 2014: (1) Promoting critical thinking in online intercultural communication (Marie-Thérèse Batardière); (2) Why in the world would I want to talk to someone else about my culture? (Chesla Ann Bohinski and Yumei Leventhal); (3) A blended learning scenario to enhance learners' oral production skills (Hee-Kyung Kim); (4) Combining Skype with Blogging: A chance to stop reinforcement of stereotypes in intercultural exchanges? (L. Lynette Kirschner); (5) English learning in an intercultural perspective: Russia and Norway (Anne-Mette Bjøru); and (6) Pan-American teletandem language exchange project (Aurora Castillo-Scott). The regular paper section includes: An e-portfolio to enhance sustainable vocabulary learning in English (Hiroya Tanaka, Akio Ohnishi, Suzanne M. Yonesaka, and Yukie Ueno). The following recommended website is reviewed by Rafael Seiz Ortiz: ABA English. Individual papers contain references.

The advent of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) has led to the availability of large educational datasets collected from diverse international audiences. Little work has been done on the impact of cultural and geographic factors on student performance in MOOCs. In this paper, we analyze national and cultural differences in students' performance in a large-scale MOOC. We situate our analysis in the context of existing theoretical frameworks for cultural analysis. We focus on three dimensions of learner behavior: course activity profiles; quiz activity profiles; and most connected forum peer or "best friends." We conclude that countries or associated cultural clusters are associated with differences in all three dimensions. These findings stress the need for more research on the internationalization in online education and greater intercultural awareness among MOOC designers.

Many studies on intercultural communication introduced how their collaborative projects were conducted. There are also several studies that discuss how intercultural collaborative activities can be integrated into a foreign language curriculum, as well as a big project (the INTENT project) that helps teachers integrate collaborative activities into their language curricula. Nonetheless, intercultural collaborative projects have not yet been mainstreamed for various reasons, such as insufficient pedagogical support from their institutions and a lack of interest in getting involved in projects among colleagues. We need to continuously examine and develop activities that can be relatively easily integrated into language curricula and that are appealing to more teachers to get involved in collaborative projects. Starting in the fall of 2013, we have been conducting a three-year experimental Facebook video project with learners of English in Japan and those of Japanese in the US. This paper will provide a brief overview of the Facebook collaboration projects and present the outcomes. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]

This paper compares multicultural education in U.S. and Japanese schools, analyzing multicultural education from the ethnic perspective. The paper notes that while the United States is a country with a long history of immigration and is composed of people with many different racial backgrounds, Japan is a country of a single race with only a few exceptions (Korean and Ainu). It discusses kindergarten through 12th grade a general multicultural education curricula in U.S. and Japanese schools, finding that the curricula identify the difference between the schools regarding multicultural education. In U.S. schools, students can study various cultures through ethnic events such as black history month and Asian history month, and are able to cultivate cultural awareness. In Japan, the Ministry of Education sets the guideline for Japanese education throughout the nation and does not create the opportunity for students to learn about Korean and Ainu cultures. The paper discusses target language programs, citing as an example Chicago's (Illinois) Mount Prospect District 59 English as a Second Language Program. It also discusses higher education as a multicultural map. The paper considers the problems that multicultural education confronts today and the future of multicultural education, contending that in the climate of internationalization and globalization, multicultural education is important for Japan and the United States. (Contains 4 figures, 10 tables, 56 notes, and 21 references.) (Author/BT)

Intercultural simulations, such as Barnga (Thiagarajan & Steinwachs, 1990), along with the use of critical incidents (Gibson, 2002; Gropper, 1996), have long been a mainstay of intercultural communication courses and have found their way into English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms (Apedaile & Schill, 2007). In this paper, a computer-mediated communication (CMC)-enhanced cultural exchange project, which is in the spirit of these intercultural simulations, will be described and evaluated. In the process of the exchange project, conducted between universities and high schools in Japan and the United States, students in the respective settings exchanged word associations and tableaux vivants based on the same word prompts. A variety of web tools facilitated the project: the forms and spreadsheets available through Google Drive to gather the word associations; word cloud creation websites to visually represent the word associations; as well as online forums for the two groups to exchange impressions and interpretations. It was found that the exchange facilitated interesting insights and interpretations and allowed for the critical analysis of the concept of culture itself. Some of the artifacts produced through a series of these exchanges will be shown and applications of the project to tandem language learning will be explained. [For full proceedings, see ED565087.]

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference e-Learning 2017, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, 20-22 July, 2017. This conference is part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems 2017, 20-23 July, which had a total of 652 submissions. The e-Learning (EL) 2017 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within e-Learning. This conference covers both technical as well as the non-technical aspects of e-Learning. The conference accepted submissions in the following seven main areas: (1) Organisational Strategy and Management Issues; (2) Technological Issues; (3) e-Learning Curriculum Development Issues; (4) Instructional Design Issues; (5) e-Learning Delivery Issues; (6) e-Learning Research Methods and Approaches; and (7) e-Skills and Information Literacy for Learning. The conference also included one keynote presentation from Thomas C. Reeves, Professor Emeritus of Learning, Design and Technology, College of Education, The University of Georgia, USA. The full papers presented at these proceedings include: (1) Game Changer For Online Learning Driven by Advances in Web Technology (Manfred Kaul, André Kless, Thorsten Bonne and Almut Rieke); (2) E-Learning Instructional Design Practice in American and Australian Institutions (Sayed Hadi Sadeghi); (3) A Game Based E-Learning System to Teach Artificial Intelligence in the Computer Sciences Degree (Amable de Castro-Santos, Waldo Fajardo and Miguel Molina-Solana); (4) The Next Stage Of Development of e-Learning at UFH in South Africa (Graham Wright, Liezel Cilliers, Elzette Van Niekerk and Eunice Seekoe); (5) Effect of Internet-Based Learning in Public Health Training: An Exploratory Meta-Analysis (Ying Peng and Weirong Yan); (6) Enhancing a Syllabus for Intermediate ESL Students with BYOD Interventions (Ewa Kilar-Magdziarz); (7) Post Graduations in Technologies and Computing Applied to Education: From F2F Classes to Multimedia Online Open Courses (Bertil P. Marques, Piedade Carvalho, Paula Escudeiro, Ana Barata, Ana Silva and Sandra Queiros); (8) Towards Architecture for Pedagogical and Game Scenarios Adaptation in Serious Games (Wassila Debabi and Ronan Champagnat); (9) Semantic Modelling for Learning Styles and Learning Material in an e-Learning Environment (Khawla Alhasan, Liming Chen and Feng Chen); (10) Physical Interactive Game for Enhancing Language Cognitive Development of Thai Pre-Schooler (Noppon Choosri and Chompoonut Pookao); (11) From a CV to an e-Portfolio: An Exploration of Adult Learner's Perception of the ePortfolio as a Job Seeking Tool (John Kilroy); (12) The Emotional Geographies of Parent Participation in Schooling: Headteachers' Perceptions in Taiwan (Hsin-Jen Chen and Ya-Hsuan Wang); (13) Geopolitical E-Analysis Based on E-Learning Content (Anca Dinicu and Romana Oancea); (14) Predictors of Student Performance in a Blended-Learning Environment: An Empirical Investigation (Lan Umek, Nina Tomaževic, Aleksander Aristovnik and Damijana Keržic); (15) Practice of Organisational Strategies of Improving Computer Rooms for Promoting Smart Education Using ICT Equipment (Nobuyuki Ogawa and Akira Shimizu); (16) Why Do Learners Choose Online Learning: The Learners' Voices (Hale Ilgaz and Yasemin Gulbahar); and (17) Enhancing Intercultural Competence of Engineering Students via GVT (Global Virtual Teams)-Based Virtual Exchanges: An International Collaborative Course in Intralogistics Education (Rui Wang, Friederike Rechl, Sonja Bigontina, Dianjun Fang, Willibald A. Günthner and Johannes Fottner). Short papers presented include: (1) Exploring Characteristics of Fine-Grained Behaviors of Learning Mathematics in Tablet-Based E-Learning Activities (Cheuk Yu Yeung, Kam Hong Shum, Lucas Chi Kwong Hui, Samuel Kai Wah Chu, Tsing Yun Chan, Yung Nin Kuo and Yee Ling Ng); (2) Breaking the Gendered-Technology Phenomenon in Taiwan's Higher Education (Ya-Hsuan Wang); (3) Ontology-Based Learner Categorization through Case Based Reasoning and Fuzzy Logic (Sohail Sarwar, Raul García-Castro, Zia Ul Qayyum, Muhammad Safyan and Rana Faisal Munir); (4) Learning Factory--Integrative E-Learning (Peter Steininger); (5) Intercultural Sensibility in Online Teaching and Learning Processes (Eulalia Torras and Andreu Bellot); (6) Mobile Learning on the Basis of the Cloud Services (Tatyana Makarchuk); (7) Personalization of Learning Activities within a Virtual Environment for Training Based on Fuzzy Logic Theory (Fahim Mohamed, Jakimi Abdeslam and El Bermi Lahcen); and (8) Promoting Best Practices in Teaching and Learning in Nigerian Universities through Effective E-Learning: Prospects and Challenges (Grace Ifeoma Obuekwe and Rose-Ann Ifeoma Eze). Reflection papers include the following: (1) A Conceptual Framework for Web-Based Learning Design (Hesham Alomyan); (2) The Key to Success in Electronic Learning: Faculty Training and Evaluation (Warren Matthews and Albert Smothers); (3) Using Games, Comic Strips, and Maps to Enhance Teacher Candidates' e-Learning Practice in The Social Studies (Nancy B. Sardone); (4) Scanner Based Assessment in Exams Organized with Personalized Thesis Randomly Generated via Microsoft Word (Romeo Teneqexhi, Margarita Qirko, Genci Sharko, Fatmir Vrapi and Loreta Kuneshka); (5) Designing a Web-Based Asynchronous Innovation/Entrepreneurism Course (Parviz Ghandforoush); and (6) Semantic Annotation of Resources to Learn with Connected Things (Aymeric Bouchereau and Ioan Roxin). Posters include: (1) Development of a Framework for MOOC in Continuous Training (Carolina Amado and Ana Pedro); and (2) Information Literacy in the 21st Century: Usefulness and Ease of Learning (Patricia Fidalgo and Joan Thormann). Also included is a Doctorial Consortium: E-Learning Research and Development: On Evaluation, Learning Performance, and Visual Attention (Marco Ruth). An author index is provided and individual papers include references.

This paper discusses trends in global education and the role of international students in American universities. It reviews trends leading to greater global understanding, such as increased foreign travel and the rise of a transnational economy, and outlines the importance of global education in a rapidly shrinking world. The paper goes on to discuss the importance of infusing global awareness in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools, noting the work of the East-West Center's Consortium for Teaching Asia and the Pacific in the Schools in Hawaii. It reviews the activities of Chaminade University in Honolulu, Hawaii, in promoting foreign travel and study in Japan by students and faculty, along with the author's own experiences as a foreign student in England and Japan. The paper then discusses the need to integrate international students into the campus and community, make sure that international student advisors do not become the sole point of contact with the university for international students, and the need to treat each international student as an individual. International student advisors must promote awareness and implement training for faculty and staff regarding issues affecting international students. (MDM)

Foreign language telecollaboration offers innovations to enhance language instruction. Previous research has cited its use to develop linguistic skills and intercultural competence (Belz, 2003; Blake, 2013; Chun, 2015; O'Dowd, 2000; Schenker, 2014). This article reports preliminary outcomes of a pedagogical project which leveraged telecollaborative practices in both English and Spanish as a foreign language in order to document the processes of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) development. [For the complete volume, see ED571330.]

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Conference on Education and New Developments 2015-END 2015, taking place in Porto, Portugal, from 27 to 29 of June. Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the human being, in the way one thinks, feels and acts. One of the most important contributions resides in what and how we learn through the improvement of educational processes, both in formal and informal settings. Our International Conference seeks to provide some answers and explore the processes, actions, challenges and outcomes of learning, teaching and human development. Our goal is to offer a worldwide connection between teachers, students, researchers and lecturers, from a wide range of academic fields, interested in exploring and giving their contribution in educational issues. We take pride in having been able to connect and bring together academics, scholars, practitioners and others interested in a field that is fertile in new perspectives, ideas and knowledge. We counted on an extensive variety of contributors and presenters, which can supplement our view of the human essence and behavior, showing the impact of their different personal, academic and cultural experiences. This is, certainly, one of the reasons we have many nationalities and cultures represented, inspiring multi-disciplinary collaborative links, fomenting intellectual encounter and development. END 2015 received 528 submissions, from 63 different countries, reviewed by a double-blind process. Submissions were prepared to take form as Oral Presentations, Posters, Virtual Presentations and Workshops. It was accepted for presentation in the conference, 176 submissions (33% acceptance rate). The conference also includes a keynote presentation from an internationally distinguished researcher, Professor Dr. Martin Braund, Adjunct Professor at Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town, South Africa and Honorary Fellow in the Department of Education at the University of York, UK, to whom we express our most gratitude. This volume is composed by the proceedings of the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2015), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.) and had the help of our respected media partners that we reference in the dedicated page. This conference addressed different categories inside the Education area and papers are expected to fit broadly into one of the named themes and sub-themes. To develop the conference program we have chosen four main broad-ranging categories, which also cover different interest areas: (1) In TEACHERS AND STUDENTS: Teachers and Staff training and education; Educational quality and standards; Curriculum and Pedagogy; Vocational education and Counseling; Ubiquitous and lifelong learning; Training programs and professional guidance; Teaching and learning relationship; Student affairs (learning, experiences and diversity); Extra-curricular activities; Assessment and measurements in Education. (2) In PROJECTS AND TRENDS: Pedagogic innovations; Challenges and transformations in Education; Technology in teaching and learning; Distance Education and eLearning; Global and sustainable developments for Education; New learning and teaching models; Multicultural and (inter)cultural communications; Inclusive and Special Education; Rural and indigenous Education; Educational projects. (3) In TEACHING AND LEARNING: Educational foundations; Research and development methodologies; Early childhood and Primary Education; Secondary Education; Higher Education; Science and technology Education; Literacy, languages and Linguistics (TESL/TEFL); Health Education; Religious Education; Sports Education. (4) In ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES: Educational policy and leadership; Human Resources development; Educational environment; Business, Administration, and Management in Education; Economics in Education; Institutional accreditations and rankings; International Education and Exchange programs; Equity, social justice and social change; Ethics and values; Organizational learning and change. The proceedings contain the results of the research and developments conducted by authors who focused on what they are passionate about: to promote growth in research methods intimately related to teaching, learning and applications in Education nowadays. It includes an extensive variety of contributors and presenters, who will extend our view in exploring and giving their contribution in educational issues, by sharing with us their different personal, academic and cultural experiences. (Individual papers contain references.)

This paper describes cultural and educational characteristics of West African countries that may have implications for West Africans studying and learning English in the United States. Countries discussed include Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Benin, Niger, Gambia, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, and Mali. The structures of the systems of elementary, secondary, vocational, and postsecondary education are outlined, focusing on commonalities in British-colonial and francophone countries, standardized testing, progression through educational levels, patterns leading to advanced degrees, types of institutions, literacy rates and patterns, schooling rates, female schooling and literacy, and uses of English. Numerical data on schooling and literacy are included. Charts detailing the structures of the Nigerian and United States systems of education are provided for comparison, and some comparisons are made with the United States within the text. (MSE)

As the demographics of the United States continue to shift, American classrooms reflect the richness of cultural diversity and the vibrancy of immigrant populations. Education abroad programs provide opportunities for pre service teachers to develop their cultural competence, required for effectively teaching children from a range of cultural backgrounds. Given the financial demands of study abroad programs, researchers have also examined domestic cultural immersion experiences. There is a lack of research that compares education abroad with domestic cultural immersion. This study contributes to the literature by comparing preservice teachers' responses to two cultural immersion experiences that are closely aligned both in content and in pedagogy, one in Israel and the other in a domestic setting.