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This study emerged as a result of insufficient knowledge and descriptions of the behavioural profiles of the near-synonym English verbs, "increase" and "rise," by non-corpus-based traditional reference sources used by students. We explored the behavioural characteristics of this group of near-synonym verbs using the British National Corpus (BNC) of 100 million words as our corpus. Using the "Sketch Engine" Tool, we examined their frequency, subject and object noun collocations, adverb collocations, and syntactic behavioural profiles. The results demonstrate that both words collocate with subject and object nouns. However, on their top ten subject collocation lists, "increase" only collocates with abstract nouns related to finance and economy, whereas "rise" collocates with three different kinds of abstract nouns related to finance/economy, the human entity, and the natural environment, and one concrete noun related to natural environment. In addition, they only have two collocates in common on their top subject noun collocates list. In terms of object noun collocations, "increase" only collocates with abstract nouns connected to finance/economy and the natural environment, but "rise" collocates with abstract and concrete nouns on their top list. They also only have three adverb collocations in common on the top list. "Rise" has 17 distinct syntactic patterns, whereas "increase" has 15 different syntactic patterns. In teaching near-synonyms, we propose using corpus-based reference resources.

Instrumental competence is universally considered a compulsory competence for translators. Given its significance, this study investigated the instrumental competence of novice translators in translating from and into a foreign language. To this end, an experiment was conducted with a group of 31 Thai EFL learners who had taken English-Thai Translation and Thai-English Translation courses. Data was collected using recordings of the participants' on-screen translation activities, their translated texts in English and Thai, a pre-translation questionnaire, a post-translation questionnaire, interviews, and direct observations. Not only did the results of the research confirm the growing popularity of electronic translation resources, particularly Machine Translation (MT), but they also revealed that the number of resources used, the total time taken for searches, the number of searches carried out, and the variety of searches carried out did not contribute to the acceptability of the solutions to translation problems. Regarding directionality, various aspects of translating into a foreign language demanded a higher use of translation resources. These results indicated that instrumental competence consists of the translator's knowledge of translation resources and their ability to use them. Consequently, this study proposes that translation teachers and institutions develop novice translators' instrumental skills to prepare them for the translation market where the expert use of modern-day resources and the ability to translate texts accurately, regardless of directionality, are required.

Although the literature on computer-assisted language learning has demonstrated that digital tools such as online translators and bilingual dictionaries offer affordances to second language (or foreign language) writers of English to solve linguistic (lexical and syntactic) issues, the extent to which digital technology supports multilingual students in producing academic texts has been underexplored. In this study, we investigate what digital technology enables and does not enable students to do in communicating their intended meaning in English by examining the writing experience of a multilingual student in an online higher education environment. The data was derived through screen sharing and online stimulated recall interviews and analysed using the concept of digital translanguaging, which focuses on meaning-making using one's entire meaning-making repertoire. The findings suggest that digital translanguaging offers many opportunities to expand the knowledge of vocabulary through self-learning. However, it also becomes evident that the success of working through lexical and syntactic issues is impacted by several factors, such as prior knowledge of the second language (L2), effective online search strategies, and awareness of digital reference resources for different purposes (e.g., online translators for literal and/or context-appropriate translations and language forums to seek advice about specific language issues from proficient speakers). We conclude by providing insights into instructional and strategic support to effectively assist multilingual students to offer greater opportunities to achieve their communication goals.

The current study investigated 29 first-year Japanese university students' usage of an online vocabulary notebook that automatically searched eight different word and phrase lists to provide students with reference information about their self-selected vocabulary. Over the course of a 14-week period, participants read English books and articles and added self-selected vocabulary that they wanted to learn to individual online vocabulary notebooks. The notebooks immediately and automatically showed whether the vocabulary appeared on any of eight different reference vocabulary lists. The distribution of participant vocabulary across lists was examined and participant surveys and interviews were conducted to understand usage of the system. Analysis of participant vocabulary, learner surveys, and interviews indicated that participants selected relatively high percentages of standardized-test related vocabulary (i.e. TOEIC and TOEFL), chose individual vocabulary items over multi-word expressions, and studied vocabulary items even when they did not appear on any reference lists. Learner surveys and interview results suggested that use of the system directly or indirectly influenced half of the participants' decisions about which vocabulary to include in their notebooks, though participants reported that it did not affect their choice of reading material.

The purpose of this study was to assess students' satisfaction with the practices and implementation of nonregular education programs (NREPs) with particular regard to Haramaya University (HU), Ethiopia. To achieve the aim of the study, an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design, which initially allows collecting quantitative data and then qualitative data for elaboration on the quantitative data, was used. The study used a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire for quantitative inquiries from 741-students belonging to different centres, and follow-up with 20 interview participants purposefully selected to elaborate those results in more detail. In the quantitative phase, four features were considered as predictors of students' satisfaction with service quality: (a) academic issues, (b) administrative issues, (c) resources/facilities, and (d) assessment and feedback issues. In the qualitative follow-up, the semi-structured interviews outlined three major themes: (a) overall teaching-learning, (b) administrative and management issues, and (c) learning support facilities. The paper used descriptive statistics to interpret the quantitative data and thematic content analysis to interpret the qualitative data. The findings are presented sequentially following the order of the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data presented in the paper. The conclusions and relevant recommendations are also stated at the end of the paper.

Despite research studies on TESOL materials and textbooks addressing a wide range of pedagogical issues as well as evaluation strategies, reference books for examination preparation have received little attention from TESOL researchers. This study reports an attempt to develop a checklist for evaluating the reference books for the examination for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE, the college entrance requirement for secondary school students in Hong Kong), with a particular focus on books for the English writing examination. The researchers acquired a total of 39 reference books on DSE English writing and examined them against the reports and documents of the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority as well as the Education Bureau. After identifying the most concerning issues in the reference books, the researchers developed a checklist for evaluating future reference books using the framework suggested by McGrath (2002), taking into account the Education Bureau's guidelines for local school textbook evaluation. The authors conclude by briefly discussing implications and how their findings could be shared with HKDSE candidates through engaging the Hong Kong government.

The study was conducted at a vocational high school in Ankara during the academic year of 2018-2019 based on the key concepts regarding the units in the chemistry curriculum for 9th grade. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether 9th grade students recognized the key concepts in chemistry units of first and second semester, and how correct their relevant definitions were. In the first unit, 9 students could determine a sufficient number of key concepts; however, in the proceeding units, the number decreased, and none of the students were able to recognize the correct concepts in the last unit. Another important finding of the study was that students included high-level concepts in their dictionaries even though they had difficulty in identifying the basic key concepts offered in the curriculum. It revealed that students attempted to explain unrecognized concepts through an unfamiliar terminology. Accordingly, it was inferred from the data obtained that students entered into chemistry with fundamental conceptual deficiencies. When concept-related definitions in student thesauruses were examined, it was revealed that the majority could make scientific explanations and choose their resources correctly; nonetheless, a small number of students could not make sufficient descriptions or used expressions far from scientific explanations. One of the important aspects of this study is that, teachers need to give the key concepts to students in detail first, and demonstrate in practice how to look up their explanations in the right resources. This constitutes the main scientific background of our study.

Until now, geography teaching has only touched upon the way in which students write argumentations focused on geographical topics, and the challenges of doing this. In order to shed light on this process, this study considers the problems and challenges students face when using material-based written argumentation in geography lessons. The results from 19 evaluated text products and sound thinking protocols, which were collected in the 8th grade of a comprehensive school, are presented and analyzed. These results show that simultaneously handling several materials at once is a challenge for the students in material-based writing due to a lack of processing techniques.

To date, there has been no investigation into how metalinguistic terms, pertaining to English language teaching, are expressed in British Sign Language (BSL). This preliminary study explored how these terms are realised in BSL with the relevant professional community. The investigation was underpinned by translanguaging as a theoretical framework and positioned as practitioner research. It was a collaborative enquiry and structured in two phases. The first involved an initial round of interviews and a targeted elicitation task using an English word list of 87 metalinguistic terms. How participants expressed the terms in BSL were recorded and analysed using ELAN, a multi-media annotation software. These articulations were recreated by two deaf presenters for the purposes of anonymously sharing the data with the participants for the second phase of the study that sought their reflections. The data evidenced considerable linguistic variation and motivation regarding articulation. Variants evidenced strong visually motivated form-meaning mapping (iconicity and transparency), while a minority were more arbitrary in nature. Some demonstrated borrowing from English, through fingerspelling, loan translations and mouthing. Others provided evidence of semantic change (broadening) by using signs from other contexts or by using multiple signs that served as an explanation of the meaning. Quite a number evidenced multiple features and motivations. The study concludes there is a lack of consensus and a dearth of established signs for terms referred to in the English language classroom. It is proposed that further research and collaboration are needed with the goal of developing a glossary of signs.

Many students who study English as a foreign language (EFL) often find it challenging to paraphrase while writing from source texts. Lacking such an ability can lead to different meanings as well as copying another person's ideas, words or work. However, little research has been done to integrate tool consultation to assist students in paraphrasing. To address this gap, this study explored whether guided tool consultation with paraphrasing strategy instruction can help students improve their overall paraphrasing performance. During an 18-week course, a class of students were trained to use three different e-tools to find synonyms: Microsoft Word thesaurus, Oxford Living Dictionaries synonyms (now called Thesaurus.com), and Linggle. Adopting a mixed-method approach, data sets included: pre-posttest drafts (summary writing), surveys, screen recordings, and interviews. The results showed significant differences between the pre- and post-tests. The majority of the lexical and phrasal paraphrases was suitable, while only a few were inaccurate. The students demonstrated the ability to consult the tools for changing synonyms and were able to apply taught strategies to restructure and restate the original sentences. Although students revealed different perceptions of the usefulness of the three tools for finding synonyms, they generally agreed that paraphrasing strategies combined with tool training were beneficial for learning. Pedagogical implications and research suggestions are provided based on the findings.

This study used a mixed methods research design to investigate use of Web-based lexicographic tools during real-time second language (L2) writing activity in an English as a foreign language university context and the impact of their use on writing quality. Participants included 22 adult Japanese EFL learners, elementary to advanced language proficiency, and their tutor. Data were collected using digital screen capture and eye-tracking technologies while participants wrote a 35-minute essay. Supplementary stimulated retrospective recalls were also conducted to document participants' reflections on the use of these tools during the full writing event. Results revealed that participants spent, on average, 15% of composing time consulting online tools, with bilingual resources the most used. Importantly, mediation analysis found that L2 proficiency was the main, and direct, predictor of essay score. These findings as well as specific patterns of use discerned are discussed with reference to the qualitative data before proposals for further research and pedagogical implications are considered.

This is an initial appraisal of the Religious Education Directory (RED) which will stipulate the content of Religious Education (RE) in all English Catholic schools from 2025. It will be explained that there is much to commend in the RED. It will certainly be welcomed by many RE teachers and advocates of Catholic education. This is because the RED offers a comprehensive framework extending from Early Years to the start of the public examination courses in Religious Studies. It will be the 'go to' document for RE teachers working in all types of Catholic schools, and be instrumental when it comes to the regular inspections which are carried out on behalf of the local diocesan bishop, to ensure the quality of the religious education provision. It has the potential to definitively shape the sort of Religious Education (RE) that around 10% of the UK school population will experience over the next few decades. This initial appraisal is being offered on the text of the RED, and well before the time when it becomes mandatory (from September 2025). This initial appraisal will, in subsequent times need to be followed up by others, which will seek to uncover how schools, individual RE teachers and students have received and responded to the guidance in the RED.

In a recent paper, Simpson and Dervin (2019a) offer a radical critique of the Council of Europe's "Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture" (RFCDC). However, Simpson and Dervin's paper contains numerous factual errors, interpretative errors and category errors in its description of the RFCDC. We identify 12 such errors which invalidate the conclusions drawn by them. We correct all of these errors, and suggest that, rather than using Simpson and Dervin's paper as a source of information about the RFCDC, readers should read the RFCDC itself, before drawing their own conclusions about the RFCDC and the adequacy of the arguments offered by Simpson and Dervin.

This paper aims to explore the reasons behind the limited dissemination of Adamczewski's Metaoperational approach to language beyond the French academic sphere. The theory, which developed in and by contrastivity between 1976 and 2005, is built on the basic assumption that utterances exhibit on their surface observable traces of the utterer's invisible structuring activity. It is initially derived from a corpus-based approach to English and applied to languages as different as French, Arabic, Turkish, Madagascan, and Kwa languages. The theory's visibility is investigated primarily in relation to its readability and translatability. The findings suggest that visibility retarders and obstructers are more associated with a general context of global scientific publication marked by the hegemony of English as the language of science than with the theoretical framework itself. However, if the model's body of knowledge and conceptual apparatus lend themselves to smooth interlingual transfer, as shown in books of Metaoperational inspirations in Spanish (Matte Bon (1992)), Italian (Gagliardelli (1999)), English (Adamczewski (2002)), and Arabic (Kahlaoui (2010)), the theory's high degree of formalism and its dense metalinguistic description are in some didactic contexts generative of reader frustration.

E-learning media is one effective solution as a learning tool that could be implemented anytime and anywhere. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) approach through the use of e-learning is expected to develop students Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). This study aimed to measure students HOTS abilities through the use of e-learning based-STEM media in quantum physics courses. Through purposive sampling technique set sample research that is students who are in the program of quantum physics courses for ten people in the even semester 2017-2018 in Jurusan Pendidikan Fisika Universitas Papua. The instruments used are eight numbers of HOTS questions in the form of essays and questionnaires of student responses given after the lesson. The data analysis technique used was gain test to see if there was the improvement of HOTS student ability and hypothesis test through SPSS to know the difference of HOTS ability before and after learning, while student response questionnaire analysis is done through Rash modeling using the Winstep program. The results showed that the value of N-gain (0.7) high category and Wilcoxon test significance value (0.004) indicating that learning of quantum physics through e-learning based on the STEM can improve students HOTS capability. Rasch modeling showed that in general the students strongly agree on the learning done. Therefore, the implementation of e-learning based on the STEM in quantum physics course could be used as one of the references to develop students HOTS capability. [Note: The page range (67-75) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range for this article is p67-74.]

The article suggests a method of foreign language lexical competence development on the basis of a Learner's terminological thesaurus and dictionary of software terms which includes four main components: classification part demonstrating the inner logic of the subject area, glossary with definitions of key terms, thesaurus demonstrating logical and associative relations of the key terms, and bilingual alphabetical dictionary. The thesaurus and dictionary has an extended context part supplemented with an encyclopedic part on the main topics of the thesaurus. The stages of the development and the structure of the Thesaurus and dictionary are described. Pedagogical experiment was conducted and proved high efficiency of the method proposed.

Vocabulary researchers generally point out three strategies that learners apply in order to find out the meanings of unknown words on their own (Graves, 2006; 2007). The use of context, word parts, reference materials ((e.g. dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses, both print and online) in-text definition/explanations, synonyms, examples, antonyms/contrasts, analogy have been added to these three ways (Gu and Johnson, 1996). The meaning of an idiom can be predicted by cashing in on world knowledge of the reader as it is not randomly constructed or an arbitrary assignment. In the depth of many idioms may lie a metaphor or an assumption, for example, to predict the meaning of an idiom like "the ball is in your court" may prerequisite the assumption that we play a game or the metaphor that life is a game. In the same way, one may find the meaning quite transparent if s/he has some encyclopedic assumptions about the type of activity, sport or game which the expression alludes to, and the ability to derive implications using these assumptions. Taking the predictability of the meaning of an idiom as idiom transparency, readers may also infer the meaning of an idiom by establishing relevance with their background experience and knowledge (Moreno, 2017). Taking all above into account, the present paper has a two-fold aim: It first aims to unveil vocabulary engagement strategies of L2 students in decoding word meaning in general at tertiary level in a state university in Turkey. Secondly, the way how the meanings of idioms are determined in the text is explored as the conflict between literal meaning and idiomatic expressions emerges as one of the challenges before the learners of foreign languages. With this aim, an already-prepared literature-based list of strategies were presented to the participants who are all college students after they were delivered the texts with unfamiliar vocabulary. Unfamiliar vocabulary also contained idioms that are transparent and opaque in meaning. The list contained strategies such as surrounding language cues, word parts, contextual cues, compositional meaning of the words, idiom-inherent features, and relevance to background knowledge and experience. The participants were also asked to describe their own way of deciphering unfamiliar word. It is expected that such an exploration of vocabulary engagement strategies will contribute to teaching vocabulary in foreign/second language teaching. [Paper presented at the GLOBELT2018 Conference in Belgrade, Serbia in May 10-13, 2018.]

The primary aim of the paper is to introduce digital literacies and the utilization of interactive and multimedia-enhanced tools for language learning purposes in and out of institutional settings. The topics covered in this paper include what digital literacy means in language education contexts and utilization of social media, online gaming, tagging, picture, voice, and video editing tools, mixing tools, interactive HTML5 contents, translation tools, search engines and (visual) thesauruses to evaluate, contribute, and create the information rather than being a mere consumer. Bearing in mind the nature of interaction and collaboration of the digital tools, suggested ways to integrate these tools to teaching and learning of languages are also presented. The paper also identifies common concerns and challenges in regard to motivation to use digital tools, judging the validity of a source, prohibitions due to country policies, plagiarism, filtering in search engines, and insensitivity with online language, which hinders the effective use of digital tools.

Choosing the right word to express meaning can be a challenge for English language learners (ELLs) in both English as second language and English as a foreign language settings, persisting through all proficiency levels in productive language use for several reasons. In order to make correct word choices, ELLs must master the various aspects of a word, including potential multiple meanings, register, connotation, collocation, and other usage aspects. However, learners are typically taught only surface-level skills for using a dictionary or thesaurus but not the deeper skills for systematically solving semantic errors. To help instructors effectively plan instruction to teach ELLs these skills, this conceptual article introduces a six-step semantic problem-solving model for both guiding ELLs in solving semantic choice problems and helping teachers plan instruction. Charts of metalexicographical knowledge, skills, and strategies and of various semantic reference resources with their strengths and weaknesses are included along with a demonstration of how this model can guide ELLs in solving a specific semantic problem. The model in its entirety is most suitable for high school or college ELLs with intermediate proficiency and above. Teachers of younger or lower proficiency learners may simplify this model to gradually build the foundation for systematic semantic problem solving.

Vocabularies are linguistic resources that make it possible to access knowledge through words. They can constitute a mechanism to identify, describe, explore, and access all the digital resources with informational content pertaining to a specific knowledge domain. In this regard, they play a key role as systems for the representation and organization of knowledge in environments in which content is created and used in a collaborative and free manner, as is the case of social wikis and blogs on the Internet or educational content in e-learning environments. In e-learning environments, electronic vocabularies (e-vocabularies) constitute a mechanism for conceptual representation of digital educational resources. They enable human and software agents either to locate and interpret resource content in large digital repositories, including the web, or to use them (vocabularies) as an educational resource by itself to learn a discipline terminology. This review article describes what e-vocabularies are, what they are like, how they are used, how they work, and what they contribute to the retrieval of digital educational resources. The goal is to contribute to a clearer view of the concepts which we regard as crucial to understand e-vocabularies and their use in the field of e-learning to describe and retrieve digital educational resources.

Much progress has been made in the areas of diminishing, avoiding, and resisting plagiarism, due to the recent development of plagiarism tools. Many scholars/authors across the globe have been struggling with plagiarism, giving a number of lectures and writing articles pinpointing strategies that take into account on-line plagiarism services such as Turnitin[TM], iThenticate, among others, besides the writing tools. In this light, the present article is an attempt to introduce spinning-translation as a method to overthrow plagiarism in classroom context. Through different language translation aids and online paraphrasing tools, students are applying the method of spinning-translation to disguise the source text accordingly. Additionally, the current paper endeavours to highlight how spinning-translation aims to takeover codes of academic research integrity before introducing beneficial plagiarism paraphrasing tools and platforms. Finally, this paper tends to peruse how plagiarism detection services (e.g. cross-language plagiarism detection methods) might come to the fore to address spinning-translation and to flick the means of diminishing, avoiding, and resisting plagiarism in classroom contexts.

Language learners today have access to a much wider choice of resources and language-support tools that aid their writing processes. While research on the convenience and flexibility of the writing resources that learners use in real-life writing activities have argued for a re-conceptualization of writing ability, little is known about the effect of using them in a writing assessment setting. Accordingly, the present study aimed to examine whether L2 learners' use of writing resources in a writing test might have an effect on their writing performance. Furthermore, we also investigated how the effects of the writing resources might vary by test takers' writing proficiency and scoring domains. Results showed that the group who had access to writing resources outperformed the group who were not given the online resource, but both groups' scores were within the same scoring descriptor. The significant score improvement was more evident in the low- and intermediate-level learners. In a questionnaire, test takers reported that they normally use the writing resources in real-life writing situations and also found the online resource features helpful in improving their writing performance and agreed upon introducing such features in future writing tests.

Representative biology textbooks for secondary school students from Korea, Indonesia, and the USA were compared to explain the differences among each country's biodiversity-related contents. For comparison, a specialised technical book was added as a reference book. Textbooks from Korea, Indonesia, and the USA have similar main sub-sections of biodiversity contents. However, both Indonesian and American biological textbooks have special additional sub-sections that differed from Korean textbook. However, none of these biological textbooks presented fully similar explanation with the reference book as a standard. Since there were several differences in explaining major topics of biodiversity in each country, we suggest that curricula compilers adapt provided biodiversity related-contents for presenting them better in the future. In addition, we also suggest biology textbook authors in Korea to add more native biological diversity examples in biodiversity content especially in conservation sub-section. With this, we hope students can learn and know more their countries' biodiversity richness through biological textbook.

This paper draws on the experiences of nine secondary school teachers in Hong Kong who conducted practitioner research (PR) in their Liberal Studies classrooms. The purpose of the study is to 1) investigate the impact and effectiveness of PR as a teacher professional development strategy and 2) identify effective support from the university team addressing the challenges relevant to an Asia-Pacific context. The study employed a qualitative design. Data were drawn from teacher interviews, meetings between the research team and the teachers, school documents and field notes. Findings suggest that while contextual challenges exist, PR is an effective approach for teacher professional development. Teachers perceived the direct impact of PR as observing the improvement of pupil performance and engagement, and a readiness to adopt new teaching strategies. Teachers also reflected on the benefits of professional development as related to the use of evidence to support reflection on pupil learning and teaching, and redefining teachers' roles. The findings provide insight into designing effective support and collaborative strategies for PR. With the support of the findings, a feasible approach to PR as a teacher professional development strategy relevant to an Asia-Pacific context is proposed.

Many second language (L2) learners utilize writing resources (e.g., linguistic tools that help check their language, search engines, and websites) when writing in their L2. Nevertheless, these tools and resources are prohibited in most writing assessments based on the assumption that using them provides an inaccurate or unfair measure of test-takers' writing ability. However, if L2 writing ability were re-conceptualized to include these writing resources, the assessment would more closely simulate writing behaviors in the real world, and we would be better positioned to generalize test-takers' performance in authentic contexts. Accordingly, the current study aimed to investigate L2 learners' use of writing resources in English writing assessment by examining the nature of test-takers' use of writing resources, investigating the difference between their performance with and without having access to the writing resources, and understanding test-takers' perspectives on using these resources. It was found that test-takers performed better with access to writing resources, but when compared across the proficiency levels, the relative standing of the proficiency levels remained the same regardless of the assessment conditions. Additionally, a conflict between the extent to which test-takers want to use writing resources and their perception of test fairness was identified.

Describing the competencies required by a profession is essential for aligning online profiles of job seekers and job advertisements. Comparing the competencies described within each context has typically not be done, which has generated a complete disconnect in language between them. This work presents an approach for the alignment of online profiles and job advertisements, according to knowledge and skills, using measures of lexical, syntactic and taxonomic similarity. In addition, we use a ranking that allows the alignment of the profiles to the topics of a thesaurus that define competencies. The results are promising, because the combination of the measures of similarity with the alignment with thesauri of competencies offers robustness to the process of generation of professional competence descriptions. This combination allows dealing with the common problems of synonymy, homonymy, hypernymy/hyponymy and meronymy of the terms in Spanish. This research uses natural language processing to offer a novel approach for assessing the match of the competencies described by the applicants and by the employers, even if they use different terminology. The resulting approach, while developed in Spanish for computer science jobs, can be extended to other languages and domains, such is the case of recruitment, where it will contribute to the creation of better tools that give feedback to job seekers about how to best align their competencies with job opportunities.

The importance of mother tongue as the best medium of instruction cannot be over emphasized. The problematic situation here is that not all the indigenous languages in a multilingual society like Nigeria have standard written forms. Even languages with standard codification such as Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba are not developed to the level of having enough lexicons and terminologies in special areas. Though so many efforts have been made by the government and scholars, they are not yet enough for the work ahead. Thus, this paper aims at studying the role of translation of texts in specialized domain into indigenous languages for the development and the provision of the much needed terminology, reference materials such as books and other texts that make learning and teaching in indigenous languages more interesting.

In this study, researchers evaluate a homework exercise assigned before a standalone information literacy session. Students in a Master of Education program completed a worksheet using the ERIC database thesaurus. The researchers conducted pre- and posttests within a single library session to assess student learning, using a control group for comparison. The treatment group did not demonstrate better thesaurus skills than students who had regular library instruction alone, but results pointed the way to targeted improvements of pre-session learning materials. This approach could inform other information literacy homework applications such as flipping the classroom.

Journal clubs have been used to advance students' scientific skills beyond basic knowledge and comprehension, but students often view the traditional format of analyzing reported data and experimental design as laborious and intimidating. As such, the traditional approach can diminish student engagement and enthusiasm for the value of scientific research and literature. In order to overcome this hurdle, we developed a novel journal club format that engages students in discussions of research literature while fostering attitudes of excitement and enthusiasm towards science. The semester begins with a broad discussion of a provocative, mysterious or even controversial central topic. During the course of the semester, students develop a research model about the topic utilizing a wide range of reference materials. Each session consists of developing, evaluating and refining hypotheses, engaging in group discussions, and determining potential directions of investigation. Herein we present (a) the details of this format including an example topic, (b) a discussion of student feedback and (c) observations following the conclusion of the inaugural undergraduate journal club.

Teaching academic writing skills in a way that engages students in deep learning is difficult and there is a risk of encouraging surface learning approaches. Moreover, linking the experience of the research process to understanding the provenance of research studies is difficult for students as they tend to experience research, referencing, citing, and related areas in disparate and unconnected ways. We report our initial experiences of designing a series of four mutually supportive tutorial activities that are based on the principles of scaffolding, social interaction, and experiential learning. The aim was to help students identify suitable research material that could be used as evidence in assignments and to promote their understanding of how evidence can be used effectively, through referencing, when writing reports and essays.

Because of the lack of tools available to assess problem-solving skills, teachers often revert to more traditional instructional approaches (e.g. lecture-based, memorization) that fail to prepare learners for the complexity of dynamic work environments. To overcome this challenge, technology solutions are needed that accurately and efficiently assess complex problem-solving skills such as causal reasoning. Moreover, these tools must be valid and reliable so instructors can accurately assess student learning. This emergent report details the design and development of Incremental Thesaurus for Assessing Causal Maps. As will be described, the software offers three unique features: (a) analysis of causal map with little or no manipulation of the original file; (b) a growing repository of terms that supports efficient assessment and (c) ability to codify the level of concept complexity using the structure-behavior-function framework.

Objective: Identify the most performant automated text classification method (eg, algorithm) for differentiating empirical studies from nonempirical works in order to facilitate systematic mixed studies reviews. Methods: The algorithms were trained and validated with 8050 database records, which had previously been manually categorized as empirical or nonempirical. A Boolean mixed filter developed for filtering MEDLINE records (title, abstract, keywords, and full texts) was used as a baseline. The set of features (eg, characteristics from the data) included observable terms and concepts extracted from a metathesaurus. The efficiency of the approaches was measured using sensitivity, precision, specificity, and accuracy. Results: The decision trees algorithm demonstrated the highest performance, surpassing the accuracy of the Boolean mixed filter by 30%. The use of full texts did not result in significant gains compared with title, abstract, keywords, and records. Results also showed that mixing concepts with observable terms can improve the classification. Significance: Screening of records, identified in bibliographic databases, for relevant studies to include in systematic reviews can be accelerated with automated text classification.

Monitoring and control over the process of studying the distance learning course are based on solving the problem of making out an adequate integral mark to the educatee for mastering entire study course, by testing results. It is suggested to use the degree of correspondence between educatee's thesaurus and the study course thesaurus as an integral mark for the degree of mastering the distance learning course. Study course thesaurus is a set of the course objects with relations between them specified. The article considers metrics of the study course thesaurus complexity, made on the basis of the graph theory and the information theory. It is suggested to use the amount of information contained in the study course thesaurus graph as the metrics of the study course thesaurus complexity. Educatee's thesaurus is considered as an object of measuring educational material learned at the semantic level and is assessed on the basis of amount of information contained in its graph, taking into account the factors of learning the thesaurus objects.

Introduction: Theorist Howard D. White has made a call to action for "scientist-poets" to synthesize concepts and oeuvres in the centrifugal literature of information science. In response, this paper interprets the work of canonical information scientist Marcia J. Bates through the original metaphor of "castles and inverted castles". Methods: An intellectual biography and close reading is performed on a sample of eight major papers by Bates. Analysis. Bates's career is sketched and the eight landmark papers are summarized; then, the papers are analysed in terms of the architectural metaphor and located at different conceptual levels in the discipline. Results: Castles (elaborately built seats of power that bridge borderlands) express many of the unique qualities of Bates's work. Inverted castles (an invention of the author) reflect an additional utilitarian and pedagogical aspect of her thinking. Conclusion: A conclusion offers critical remarks on Bates's contribution. The outcome is a vivid interpretation of the work of one notable information scientist. [Paper was published as part of Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Denmark, 19-22 August, 2013.]

Over the past decade, 80 to 90 percent of courses at universities and colleges in the United States were delivered as "blended learning" courses. However, systematical research has rarely been done to identify the measureable impact and effectiveness of the design of blended learning on learning related outcomes. In this article, the authors first identified five design elements: (a) Online Activity as an Extension of In-class Activity, (b) Self-directed Learning Activity, (c) Collaboration and Communication, (d) Assessment, and (e) Reference Materials; and then explored whether any of these design elements are factors of student successful completion rates. A total of 2,624 blended learning courses offered in fall 2012 at a western state university were reviewed, out of which 1,143 courses met the criteria of the study and were used for data analysis. One of the five design elements was found significant on student successful course completion rates.