Language anxiety and language identity in the L2 English classroom of Norwegian upper secondary schools: A mixed methods study of teachers’ and students’ beliefs and experiences

This research project is a mixed methods study exploring language anxiety and language identity in the L2 English classroom of Norwegian VG1 classes. The study aimed to investigate and compare the teachers’ and students’ beliefs about these aspects and explore how their beliefs reflected current research literature. The study placed particular emphasis on language anxiety in relation to the development of oral skills. It also sought to examine the possible relationships between language anxiety and language identity. In particular, the study aimed to answer four main research questions. Two research questions sought to explore the teachers’ and students’ beliefs and experiences regarding language anxiety in the English subject classroom. The third research question aimed to investigate the teachers’ and students’ beliefs about how language anxiety may influence language development. The final research question aimed to examine the teachers’ and students’ beliefs about language identity and its possible relationship to language anxiety. In exploring this topic, the study employed a mixed methods research design, combining interviews and a questionnaire. Three English teachers in three different Norwegian upper secondary schools were interviewed to gain a perspective of the teachers’ beliefs and experiences. Similarly, six of the students the teachers taught were interviewed to gain a perspective of the students’ beliefs and experiences. Lastly, a student questionnaire was completed by 136 students in the respective schools. First, the present study found that the teachers’ and students’ beliefs about language anxiety were fairly similar. Their beliefs also reflected previous research on language anxiety. The participants believed that various personality traits, previous experiences, fear of evaluation, and the increasing pressure to perform well contributed to language anxiety. However, the students added the fear of peer ridicule as a source of language anxiety. To alleviate language anxiety, the teachers and students believed engaging tasks, oral activities in groups, and a safe classroom environment to be essential factors. Second, the participants reported various experiences with language anxiety. Neither of the teachers had learned about language anxiety during their education. However, numerous students reported having experienced language anxiety. The students explained that the most anxiety-provoking activities were oral presentations, group discussions, reading aloud, and answering the teachers’ spontaneous questions. These experiences correlated with the teachers’ beliefs, who believed that speaking was the most anxiety-provoking activity. Nevertheless, some students reported having experienced peer ridicule after speaking English in class. The teachers reported never to have experienced this in their classes. Third, the teachers and the students believed that language anxiety affected language development negatively. The teachers believed that it was essential for students to speak the language in order to learn it. The students generally believed that language anxiety would hinder them from demonstrating their oral skills. Finally, the teachers’ and students’ beliefs were similar regarding language identity and the students’ strong desire to learn English. They believed that students who were increasingly exposed to English experienced less language anxiety, whereas a few students believed that the increasing exposure to English enhanced the pressure to perform well. Altogether, they believed that the increasing exposure to English influenced their language development positively since it allowed for meaningful and natural communication. Their beliefs correlated with research on language identity, suggesting a correlation between language skills and a strong motivation, desire, and investment to learn the language. The overall goal from these materials was to shed light on contributing factors and possible effects language anxiety may have on Norwegian students’ development of oral skills. Besides, it gained a perspective on language identity and its possible relationship with language anxiety. Finally, it aimed to add valuable inquiry into the field of teacher and learner beliefs, to what extent their beliefs coincided, and to what extent their beliefs reflected research on teacher and learner beliefs

The storycrafting method: A systematic review

In most cultures, telling and listening to stories is an important part of childhood and adulthood. Storycrafting is one way of producing stories by giving the storytellers (children) the possibility to freely express themselves. The method was developed focusing on giving children extended tools for participative and democratic dialog with adults. Our systematic review aims to describe how the storycrafting method has been used in research and the extent of method evaluation. A PRISMA flow chart is presented, demonstrating the search process and the seven (7) articles meeting our search criteria after searching the following databases: Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, Cinahl, Web of Science, and ERIC. The results conclude that the body of research in the field of storycrafting is limited and versatile. The study provides an overview of the conducted studies and suggestions for further research are discussed

Techniques and tools for measuring energy efficiency of scientific software applications

Volume: 608The scale of scientific High Performance Computing (HPC) and High Throughput Computing (HTC) has increased significantly in recent years, and is becoming sensitive to total energy use and cost. Energy-efficiency has thus become an important concern in scientific fields such as High Energy Physics (HEP). There has been a growing interest in utilizing alternate architectures, such as low power ARM processors, to replace traditional Intel x86 architectures. Nevertheless, even though such solutions have been successfully used in mobile applications with low I/O and memory demands, it is unclear if they are suitable and more energy-efficient in the scientific computing environment. Furthermore, there is a lack of tools and experience to derive and compare power consumption between the architectures for various workloads, and eventually to support software optimizations for energy efficiency. To that end, we have performed several physical and software-based measurements of workloads from HEP applications running on ARM and Intel architectures, and compare their power consumption and performance. We leverage several profiling tools (both in hardware and software) to extract different characteristics of the power use. We report the results of these measurements and the experience gained in developing a set of measurement techniques and profiling tools to accurately assess the power consumption for scientific workloads.Peer reviewe

Radiofármacos PET

Dada la tasa actual de evolución de la biología molecular de los receptores del SNC, la diferencia entre el número de radiotrazadores disponibles y las drogas potenciales va creciendo rápidamente99. Debemos por tanto insistir en que la utilidad de la tecnología PET en la búsqueda de nuevos agentes terapéuticos descansa sin duda en la obtención de compuestos marcados, por lo que la potenciación de la radioquímica y la radiofarmacia van a ser puntos clave en el desarrollo de este apasionante campo

Supporting the suffering patient in the stage of enduring—A theoretical reflection on suffering as an essential part of nursing

Nursing and caring sciences are relatively new sciences. Nursing and caring for sick people have been part of human history since the beginning of time, but it was not until the mid 1950s that nursing was seen as a science of its own. Theories describing nursing and caring have been published since the 1950s. In these theories, different concepts in the metaparadigm of nursing are described. The overall aim of this essay is to describe suffering as one of the building blocks of the metaparadigm of nursing; furthermore the essay discusses the concept of enduring related to suffering and how the caregiver can support a patient in the stage of enduring suffering

A constructivist approach to teaching and learning at the degree programme in nursing at Novia university of applied sciences

Novia University of Applied Sciences has adapted a constructivist approach as the overall teaching method. This report outlines how the method is conducted at Degree Programme (DP) in Nursing. The curriculum is presented in the beginning of the report followed by a description of the constructivist approach and how it is incorporated it in the teaching methods and the outline of the curriculum. The report also describes hands-on examples of adapting the constructivist approach in daily teaching methods. The curriculum and the key competences, as they were designed and approved 2011, can be found as an appendix to the report.YH Novia har valt den konstruktivistiska pedagogiken som gemensam grund för undervisningen. Denna rapport visar hur Degree Programe in Nursing har anammat konstruktivismen som grund för undervisning och också för läroplansutveckling. Rapporten börjar med en kort beskrivning av programmet och fortsätter med en beskrivning av konstruktivismen. Rapporten beskriver också hur vi konkret har anammat den konstruktivistiska pedagogiken i undervisningsmetoder, praxis och läroplansutveckling. Som bilaga till rapporten finns läroplanen, där de allmänna och professionella kompetenserna finns beskrivna. Läroplanen godkändes år 2011

Love; a relevant concept in nursing and caring science

Love is for the world what the sun is for the exterior life (Steiner, 1978) and it adds beauty, joy and satisfaction to the practice of nursing and also to the caring process. One reason for suffering is the lack of care, and the motive for caring is, according to Eriksson (2001), love. The lack of love can be a reason for the lack of care, which motivates the study of the concept “love” in caring science. The aim of this article is to describe and discuss the concept of love and the way it is related to nursing and caring science

Byggnadsrelaterad ohälsa : kompetensutveckling inom hälsovården

Det finns ett stort behov av utbildning om inomhusmiljö och byggnadsrelaterad ohälsa, både inom ramen för grundläggande yrkesutbildningar och som fortbildningskurser för yrkesverksamma. Hälsoproblem som beror på dålig inomhusluft på arbetsplatsen utreds av företagshälsovården. Dock har de som jobbar inom företags¬hälsovård idag inte alltid tillräcklig kunskap om inomhusmiljö och byggnadsrelaterad ohälsa och saknar ofta beredskap att som sakkunniga delta i utredningar på arbetsplatser. För att förbättra vården bör personalen utbildas om bl.a. riskfaktorer för dålig inomhusluft, vanliga hälsobesvär och inverkan på arbetsförmåga och produktivitet, de psykosociala faktorernas betydelse samt ansvarsfrågor och hälsoekonomiska konsekvenser. Öppna digitala lärresurser (OER) och kurser på nätet (MOOCs) kan med fördel användas vid fortbildning av vårdpersonal. Nätbaserad utbildning underlättar för vårdpersonalen att själv kunna välja tidpunkt och målsätt¬ning. Därtill utgör OER även ett hjälpmedel för att utveckla kunskapsöverföringen mellan Sverige och Fin¬land.There is a growing demand for education on indoor environment and building-related illness, both in the context of basic vocational education and training courses for professionals. Health problems, caused by poor indoor air quality in the workplace, are investigated by the occupational health service. However, those working with occupational health today, do not always have sufficient knowledge about the indoor environment and building-related illness and often lack the capacity to participate as experts in investigations of the indoor environment in a workplace. To improve health care, staff should be trained on e.g. risk factors for poor indoor air quality, common health problems and impact on working capacity and productivity, the impact of psychosocial factors as well as liability issues and health economic implications. Open Educational Resources (OER)and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can advantageously be used in the training of health professionals. Online education makes it easier for them to choose when to participate and the objectives of the education. Furthermore, OER also constitutes a means to develop knowledge transfer between Sweden and Finland

Lärares målspråksanvändning- Lärares val av språk i engelskundervisningen i årskurs 4 & 5

Sammanfattning: Valet av språk i engelskundervisningen varierar mellan lärare. Vissa menar att målspråket bör användas i alla klassrumssituationer medan vissa lärare anser att både förstaspråket och målspråket behövs i undervisningen. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka i vilka situationer och i vilken utsträckning lärare använder svenska respektive engelska i engelskundervisningen i årskurs 4 och 5 samt hur de motiverar sitt val av språk. Detta undersöktes genom att observera olika klassrumssituationer och intervjua engelsklärare. Resultatet visade att fler lärare valde svenska framför engelska vid de flesta klassrumssituationerna. Lärarna förklarade i intervjuerna att valet av språk beror på elevers olika kunskapsnivåer, deras reaktioner när lärarna använder målspråket, språklig exponering och vilken klassrumssituation det är. Resultatet av klassrumssituationerna och lärarnas motiveringar stämde till viss del överens med tidigare forskning och teorierna Input hypothesis samt Ellis sjätte princip, men det fanns även några situationer och motiveringar som skiljde sig