Search

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of the two types of teacher feedback--direct corrective feedback (DCF) and metalinguistic explanation (ME)--on the development of EFL learners' knowledge of the English indefinite article and on their use of it in writing. For this study, 58 college students classified into three groups (two experimental groups and one control group) took the error correction test and performed three writing tasks. The results of the study are: (1) there was no group effect of the two types of feedback in the development of their explicit knowledge of the target feature in the test, whereas a time effect was found that their knowledge of the target feature developed significantly after the treatment; and (2) no group differences were found between the two types of feedback in the use of the target feature in the revised writing and among the three writings, though the DCF group outperformed the ME group in the accurate use of the target feature in writing. Theoretical and pedagogical relevance of the findings is addressed.

The present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD) approaches on EFL learners' vocabulary learning, the difference in the effects of the two approaches depending upon their level of vocabulary proficiency, and their perception of the approaches. For this study, 122 college students were divided into two approach groups and to two levels in each group depending upon their level of vocabulary knowledge. They were trained with either of the approaches for one semester. The results were that 1) there was no statistically significant differences between the BU and TD approaches, even though the two approaches were effective to improve the students' vocabulary knowledge; 2) high-level students failed to show any significant differences between the two approaches in the two tests, whereas low-level students in the BU group performed significantly better than those in the TD group in the production test; and 3) they preferred the BU or TD approach to the traditional method in vocabulary learning, and they listed some advantages and disadvantages of the approaches.

Simple Summary: Traditionally, the upper border of whole pelvic radiotherapy fields for cervical cancer was set using vertebral landmarks, potentially missing a part of the common iliac lymph node (CIN). This retrospective study investigated the impact of insufficient radiation coverage of CIN in stage IB2-IIB cervical cancer treatment. We compared outcomes between patients with full CIN coverage and those with partial coverage. Our results showed that patients with full CIN coverage had significantly better outcomes, including lower recurrence rates and higher survival rates. These findings suggest that using vascular anatomy (aortic bifurcation) as a guide for setting the upper border of radiation fields may be more effective than relying on vertebral landmarks. Our study highlights the importance of ensuring comprehensive coverage of the CIN area in cervical cancer treatment, which may influence future radiotherapy practices by encouraging the use of vascular landmarks for field border definition. This study investigates the impact of insufficient common iliac lymph node (CIN) irradiation on treatment outcomes in patients with stage IB2-IIB cervical cancer receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT). We retrospectively analyzed 68 patients with Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage IB2-IIB, treated with weekly cisplatin-based CCRT from 2008 to 2018. Patients received external-beam whole pelvic radiotherapy (WPRT) and concurrent cisplatin chemotherapy, followed by high-dose-rate brachytherapy. The WPRT upper border was at L4-5 in 61 patients and L3-4 in 7 patients. Thirty-seven patients had the CIN area fully included (full-CIN group), while 31 had partial inclusion (partial-CIN group). Recurrence rates and survival outcomes were analyzed over a median follow-up of 111 months. Patient characteristics and the irradiated dose were comparable. Treatment failure occurred in three patients (8.1%) in the full-CIN group and in six patients (19.4%) in the partial-CIN group, with CIN and para-aortic lymph node recurrence in two and one patients, respectively. The 5-year cumulative recurrence rate was 0% for the full-CIN group and 11.4% for the partial-CIN group (p = 0.04). Cause-specific survival was 100% vs. 87.1% (p = 0.025), and the overall survival was 94.3% vs. 87.1% (p = 0.44). Fully including the CIN area in WPRT is crucial for stage IB2-IIB cervical cancer. Vascular anatomical margins should be considered over vertebral landmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]