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Outcome-based education is not only a talent-training mode but also a theoretical base of curriculum design. Although OBE has been widely studied and practiced around the world, few researches could be found to discuss the roles and effects of blended learning method in OBE framework. This paper develops an outcome-based ESP course with blended learning method for Chinese undergraduates who major in software engineering to acquire adequate working skills in English for the preparation of their future professions in the IT industry. It provides a comprehensive description of the course design, class practices and evaluation method. The paper also verifies the effectiveness of the course from the students’ feedback, teachers’ opinions and experts’ evaluation.

With the deepening development of educational reform of College English, its transformation has become an inevitable problem. EAP teaching has become a new topic in College English teaching under the objective situation of the great progress where bilingual teaching in key national universities has made. Based on the Sydney School’s scaffolding instruction framework of EAP reading and writing, in combination of the training objectives and course settings for the talents from advanced science and engineering universities, we have conducted an empirical research on web-based scaffolding pedagogy of EAP literacy cultivation. In the follow-up questionnaires, students have general reflex that independent EAP reading and writing ability has met a significant improvement, and the awareness of self-learning and cooperative learning has been fully tapped.

Not all depression patients effectively respond to repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). We tested whether the intrinsic functional connectivity (FC) strength between the stimulated left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left nucleus accumbens (NAcc) might predict effects of rTMS. Twenty-two medication-naïve depression patients received rTMS on left DLPFC for 2 weeks and underwent baseline functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We compared the amplitude of the low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and regional homogeneity (ReHo) in the stimulated target (the cortex region directly stimulated by rTMS) located in the left DLPFC, and the left NAcc, as well as the intrinsic FC of the DLPFC–NAcc between early improvers and non-improvers. We evaluated the association between the baseline brain imaging features (ALFF, ReHo, and FC) and improvements in depression and anxiety symptoms. We found that the pretreatment ALFF and ReHo in the stimulated DLPFC and left NAcc did not significantly differ between the subgroups. The early improvers displayed increased negative FC strength between the stimulated DLPFC and left NAcc with respect to non-improvers. The stimulated DLPFC–NAcc FC strength negatively correlated with improved depressive and anxious symptoms. This study is the first to demonstrate that the resting-state FC of the stimulated DLPFC–NAcc, rather than regional brain activity or local synchronization in the stimulated target, might predict the anti-depression and anti-anxiety effects of rTMS for depression.

This paper investigates lexical features in two different styles of English newspapers-broadsheets (The New York Times, and The Times), and tabloids (New York Post and The Sun). The comparison and contrast are done in five lexical aspects: the use of compound words, fuzzy words, numbers, proper nouns and vivid words. Statistics show that differences do exist between broadsheets and tabloids. Analysis is done to reveal the possible causes that lead to the difference and provides evidence that lexical features are essential to set the tone of newspaper writing.

This paper tries to provide both theoretical and pedagogical evidence on the organizational pattern of L2 mental lexicon for Chinese ESL learners and teachers. The evidence results from a carefully designed empirical research where the subjects are ESL students with different language proficiencies from software school of DUT. Results show that the organizational pattern of Chinese ESL learners’ mental lexicon is a mix of semantic and non-semantic network, and it is rather dynamic. Efforts of reconstructing the lexicon network are necessary.

This paper traces 9 non-English major EFL students and collects their oral productions in 4 successive oral exams in 2 years. The canonical correlation analysis approach of SPSS is adopted to study the disfluencies developmental traits under the influence of language acquisition development. We find that as language acquisition develops, the total production of difluenices does not decrease correspondingly as we thought, but keeps constant for a period of time. While the proportions of specific disfluencies phenomena change significantly, which features the decrease of pauses and the increase self-repairs. Besides, the grammatical accuracy and language complexity have opposite effects on disfluencies traits. In the first year, disfluencies were displayed mainly as pauses and repetitions since EFL students paid more attention to grammatical accuracy; in the second year, disfluencies featured more self-repairs and less pauses because EFL students transferred their attention to language complexity. We also find language acquisition can only account for partial developmental traits of disfluencies despite of the strong correlations between them, and other factors, such as psychological or social elements, may also take effects.