Peer tutoring: Out-of-class speaking opportunities

Conference Theme: Research into Practice in the Four-year curriculumOut-of-class learning will become a large component of all English courses in the new curriculum at HKU. However, experience shows it is particularly difficult to provide out-of-class speaking opportunities. This paper reports on a collaborative project by the Centre for Applied English Studies and the Centre of Development and Resources for Students (both at HKU) which recruits students who are native- or expert-speakers of English to volunteer their time to provide face-to-face speaking opportunities for other students of the university. This form of peer-tutoring has its origins both in tandem learning (Voller & Pickard 1996 through to Schwienhorst 2009) and in the development of Learning Commons (see for example, learningcommons.sfu.ca and Demeter 2011). The HKU programme has become popular with students at all levels of proficiency because it has sufficient flexibility to offer: confidence raising for anxious speakers, ad hoc tutoring for those needing improvement, natural language interaction for higher level speakers and an opportunity for highly local knowledge exchange between the tutors and tutees (the development of Knowledge Exchange is a theme that is currently being strongly promoted by the UGC). Using data collected through questionnaires and focus groups this presentation reports on the perceived benefits of the scheme both for tutors and tutees, and suggests ways to facilitate such a scheme in other institutions.published_or_final_versio

The Professional Identity of SALL Practitioners

Session: Facilitating self-access learningThe article can be viewed at: http://sola.kmutt.ac.th/dral2014/proceedings_online/106-114%20ILA%20David%20Gardner%20Lindsay%20Miller-formatted.pdfThis paper examines the professional identity of practitioners in the field of self-access language learning (SALL) at tertiary level institutions in Hong Kong. It uses research data and examples from the literature to illustrate membership of a SALL practitioners’ professional community which exhibits the characteristics of a “community of practice” (CoP) as defined by Lave and Wenger (1991). After outlining the three key elements (Wenger, 2006) and the seven main principles of a CoP (Wenger et al, 2003), we illustrate through interview data a clear example of membership and non-membership of the community and discuss an example of how teachers who are not initially members were inducted into a CoP by challenging their beliefs and values. Thirdly, we identify ways to bring teachers into a SALL practitioners’ CoP and review the key features which promote and strengthen such a community. Nurturing a strong SALL practitioner’s CoP and encouraging teachers’ membership of it contributes to the development of their professional identity

Online publishing: authentic writing opportunities for learners

This paper describes the use of live online journals established by the course providers to create an authentic writing environment for learners to work within. A range of six journals provides learners with choices of writing topics and audiences, and opportunities to learn about audience awareness and genre. Approximately 600 Year 2 university students write an article for one of these journals each year as part of their ESP course. In addition to being graded for the course, the best articles are submitted to the journal editors who decide independently which to publish. Maintaining high but achievable standards produces a challenging but accessible target and an authentic writing environment as well as an additional 'qualification' for the cv of those who are successfully published.postprin

Training new teachers to promote self-directed learning

Conference theme: Autonomy in a Networked WorldSession 3: Autonomy and learning environmentpublished_or_final_versio

Uncovering SAC managers’ attitudes and approaches to autonomous language learning

The Conference accepted abstracts' website is located at http://ilac2009.elc.polyu.edu.hk/index.php/ILAC/ILAC2009/schedConf/presentationsConference Theme: Independent Learning: Building on experience, seeking new perspectivesPaper Presentation - Managing independent learning centresIn this session we present an analysis of qualitative data from a research project which looked at the management of self-access language learning from the perspective of the managers of seven self-access centres. The goal of the project was to see how, and to what extent, there is a match between a theoretical perspective of learner autonomy and the practice of managing self access facilities. There were three stages to the project: First, the seven SAC managers completed a detailed questionnaire about their attitudes and approaches to self access learning and learner autonomy; secondly, based on their replies to the questionnaire, each manager was interviewed to provide a deeper understanding of their views and practices; and finally, we brought the managers together for a focus group discussion about some of the main issues which emerged from the data. Our interpretation of 'theory versus practice' is discussed in this session.postprin

Peer tutoring: Out-of-class speaking opportunities

Conference Theme: Research into Practice in the Four-year curriculumOut-of-class learning will become a large component of all English courses in the new curriculum at HKU. However, experience shows it is particularly difficult to provide out-of-class speaking opportunities. This paper reports on a collaborative project by the Centre for Applied English Studies and the Centre of Development and Resources for Students (both at HKU) which recruits students who are native- or expert-speakers of English to volunteer their time to provide face-to-face speaking opportunities for other students of the university. This form of peer-tutoring has its origins both in tandem learning (Voller & Pickard 1996 through to Schwienhorst 2009) and in the development of Learning Commons (see for example, learningcommons.sfu.ca and Demeter 2011). The HKU programme has become popular with students at all levels of proficiency because it has sufficient flexibility to offer: confidence raising for anxious speakers, ad hoc tutoring for those needing improvement, natural language interaction for higher level speakers and an opportunity for highly local knowledge exchange between the tutors and tutees (the development of Knowledge Exchange is a theme that is currently being strongly promoted by the UGC). Using data collected through questionnaires and focus groups this presentation reports on the perceived benefits of the scheme both for tutors and tutees, and suggests ways to facilitate such a scheme in other institutions.published_or_final_versio

Promoting self-directed learning in the curriculum: training new teachers

Theme: Research into Practice in the Four-year curriculumIn the new curriculum being implemented for the 4-year curriculum at The University of Hong Kong, an important emphasis is being placed on out-of-class learning which, in many parts of the curriculum, may contribute up to two-thirds of the students’ learning hours. In the new English academic literacy courses being developed by the Centre for Applied English Studies, a major component of the out-of-class learning will be self-directed learning. To enhance its impact, self-directed learning is being directly integrated into many of those new courses as a tangible component that will be monitored by teachers and will contribute to success in the assessment of other parts of the course. However, …postprin

Ectopic A-lattice seams destabilize microtubules

Natural microtubules typically include one A-lattice seam within an otherwise helically symmetric B-lattice tube. It is currently unclear how A-lattice seams influence microtubule dynamic instability. Here we find that including extra A-lattice seams in GMPCPP microtubules, structural analogues of the GTP caps of dynamic microtubules, destabilizes them, enhancing their median shrinkage rate by >20-fold. Dynamic microtubules nucleated by seeds containing extra A-lattice seams have growth rates similar to microtubules nucleated by B-lattice seeds, yet have increased catastrophe frequencies at both ends. Furthermore, binding B-lattice GDP microtubules to a rigor kinesin surface stabilizes them against shrinkage, whereas microtubules with extra A-lattice seams are stabilized only slightly. Our data suggest that introducing extra A-lattice seams into dynamic microtubules destabilizes them by destabilizing their GTP caps. On this basis, we propose that the single A-lattice seam of natural B-lattice MTs may act as a trigger point, and potentially a regulation point, for catastrophe

Evolution of opinions on social networks in the presence of competing committed groups

Public opinion is often affected by the presence of committed groups of individuals dedicated to competing points of view. Using a model of pairwise social influence, we study how the presence of such groups within social networks affects the outcome and the speed of evolution of the overall opinion on the network. Earlier work indicated that a single committed group within a dense social network can cause the entire network to quickly adopt the group's opinion (in times scaling logarithmically with the network size), so long as the committed group constitutes more than about 10% of the population (with the findings being qualitatively similar for sparse networks as well). Here we study the more general case of opinion evolution when two groups committed to distinct, competing opinions $A$ and $B$, and constituting fractions $p_A$ and $p_B$ of the total population respectively, are present in the network. We show for stylized social networks (including Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi random graphs and Barab\'asi-Albert scale-free networks) that the phase diagram of this system in parameter space $(p_A,p_B)$ consists of two regions, one where two stable steady-states coexist, and the remaining where only a single stable steady-state exists. These two regions are separated by two fold-bifurcation (spinodal) lines which meet tangentially and terminate at a cusp (critical point). We provide further insights to the phase diagram and to the nature of the underlying phase transitions by investigating the model on infinite (mean-field limit), finite complete graphs and finite sparse networks. For the latter case, we also derive the scaling exponent associated with the exponential growth of switching times as a function of the distance from the critical point.Comment: 23 pages: 15 pages + 7 figures (main text), 8 pages + 1 figure + 1 table (supplementary info

A risk profile for identifying community-dwelling elderly with a highrisk of recurrent falling: results of a 3-year prospective study

Introduction: The aim of the prospective study reported here was to develop a risk profile that can be used to identify community-dwelling elderly at a high risk of recurrent falling. Materials and methods: The study was designed as a 3-year prospective cohort study. A total of 1365 community-dwelling persons, aged 65 years and older, of the population-based Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam participated in the study. During an interview in 1995/1996, physical, cognitive, emotional and social aspects of functioning were assessed. A follow-up on the number of falls and fractures was conducted during a 3-year period using fall calendars that participants filled out weekly. Recurrent fallers were identified as those who fell at least twice within a 6-month period during the 3-year follow-up. Results: The incidence of recurrent falls at the 3-year follow-up point was 24.9% in women and 24.4% in men. Of the respondents, 5.5% reported a total of 87 fractures that resulted from a fall, including 20 hip fractures, 21 wrist fractures and seven humerus fractures. Recurrent fallers were more prone to have a fall-related fracture than those who were not defined as recurrent fallers (11.9% vs. 3.4%; OR: 3.8; 95% CI: 2.3-6.1). Backward logistic regression analysis identified the following predictors in the risk profile for recurrent falling: two or more previous falls, dizziness, functional limitations, weak grip strength, low body weight, fear of falling, the presence of dogs/cats in the household, a high educational level, drinking 18 or more alcoholic consumptions per week and two interaction terms (high educationx18 or more alcohol consumptions per week and two or more previous falls x fear of falling) (AUC=0.71). Discussion: At a cut-off point of 5 on the total risk score (range 0-30), the model predicted recurrent falling with a sensitivity of 59% and a specificity of 71%. At a cut-off point of 10, the sensitivity and specificity were 31% and 92%, respectively. A risk profile including nine predictors that can easily be assessed seems to be a useful tool for the identification of community-dwelling elderly with a high risk of recurrent falling. © International Osteoporosis Foundation and National Osteoporosis Foundation 2006