Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Reconstruction in adult TESOL'

My dissertation asserts that the discourses which at the present time construct the world of work for teachers in adult TESOL, are no longer adequate to represent the field in these new and rapidly changing times. For the last forty years the discourses that have constructed the field present a totalising, gender free, liberal humanist view of TESOL, rendering women's experience invisible, no longer speaking to or for women teachers who make up more than ninety percent of the teachers in Victorian adult TESOL programs (Cope & Kalantzis 1993, Brodkey 1991, Fine 1992, Peirce 1995). I begin by exploring the work of women teachers in adult TESOL, focusing on women teaching in the fast growing de-institutionalised settings of adult TESOL programs, which remain marginalised from the central programs in terms of administrative policy and practice. I report the findings of a series of projects undertaken by the teachers and the researcher by which new insights and understandings of teachers beliefs about their work and the changes which are currently reconstructing the field of adult language and literacy education in Australia, have been gained. I questions the discourses of applied linguistics which have for the past forty years constructed the field of adult TESOL in Australia and suggests that these lack a social theory (Candlin 1989). From the research findings I questions the possibility of continuing to work in the ways of the past, in the current climate of reconstruction of the field, rapid policy change and continued erosion of resources. I suggest that the previously loose system which held this field of work together, the ways of working, the understandings of practice, have in the light of these new times, been stretched to the limit and are in real danger of collapse. For the women working in TESOL this continued incursion of the systems into their work and the changes that have taken place, the denial of their ways of working, their local knowledge and gendered experiences, can be read against Habermas' concept of the colonisation of the lifeworld of language teaching (Habermas 1987).

In this thesis, multiple-response sequences (MRSs) are examined. These are a language classroom practice in which two or more students respond to a teacher???s question or other elicitation. The study uses tools of Conversation Analysis to investigate over 38 hours of classroom talk- in-interaction in TESOL classes comprising monolingual adult Korean learners. Classes were recorded on audio and video in Seoul, South Korea and Sydney, Australia. About 1050 cases of MRSs were found and analysed. In the study, four distinct major types of multiple responses (MRs) are identified. These are: the identical MR, in which two or more students provide the same response; the complementary MR, in which two or more students??? responses provide essent ially the same meaning, but in different forms; the collaborative MR, in which two or more students collectively provide various parts of the response in the construction of a single response; and the competitive MR, in which two or more students provide responses that diverge from one another. The study also examines complex MRs, which are combinations of the basic four types, and expanded sequences, in which MRs occur in preparatory stage or post-expansion sequences. It was found that the teacher and students can produce highly complex, co-ordinated and orderly talk in the course of MRSs. The study also considers MRSs as a potential locus for second language learning. The relevance of this study to some major theories of second language acquisition is discussed, in particular in relation to social interaction in the classroom.Finally, some suggestions for future research in the area are presented.

This study investigated the salient cultural variables in play in an adult TESOL classroom. Two instructors paired students and offered their rationales for having done so. They created 71 dyads, which were examined and categorized according to Storch's four patterns of interaction. Results showed that the instructor who created pairs according to certain student cultural variables had a 12% higher rate of acquisition-enhancing patterns than did the instructor who did not pair in this same fashion. Instructor rationales were then analyzed to determine which cultural variables were found to be most salient in the creation of each of the four interaction patterns. Among them were issues of facework, trust, cultural norm remaking, and role ascription or achievement. By extension, the findings showed that using cultural variables when pairing learners in the TESOL classroom might significantly enhance second language acquisition.

This study is mainly concerned with the common errors Vietnamese adult students make in learning English as a second/foreign language. Using the tools of contrastive analysis and error analysis, the researcher decribes and examines certain areas of similarity and difference between English and Vietnamese on some grammatical aspects, and then analyses the errors made by the Vietnamese students in two different learning contexts and at different levels of proficiency. This studies consists of six chapters : Chapter 1 introduces the position of English in Vietnam at present, raises the problems encountered in the teaching and learning of English in Vietnam, and states why this study is necessary. Chapter 2 is the summary of the main theories of second language acquisition and some of the principal studies of Vietnamese grammar. Chapter 3 discusses the techniques of contrastive analysis and error analysis, which provide bases for the comparative study in Chapter 4 and the error analysis in Chapter 5. In Chapter 4, a contrastive study is undertaken of eleven aspects of English and Vietnamese grammar, which serves as the basis for the discussion in Chapter 5. Chapter 5 presents an analysis of the common errors Vietnamese students make in two different learning contexts in Vietnam and in Australia. It also discusses the various strategies the students use in order to achieve language proficiency. Finally, some conclusions concerning the attitude towards, and the treatment of, errors are mentioned in Chapter 6. It also provides suggestions for further study in the subject area.

THE PROFESSIONAL LIFE-CYCLES AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF ADULT TEACHERS OF ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES (TESOL) This thesis focuses on the findings of a research study conducted in Geneva and Sydney to examine the career cycles of TESOLs. It explores many of the issues investigated in Huberman???s study of 160 secondary school teachers in Geneva (1989, 1993). Seventy-three in-depth interviews were conducted with teachers and trainers / administrators in adult TESOL, and professional development issues were examined in greater detail than in the Huberman study. The central purpose of the study was to test the universality of the Huberman model of career phases. TESOLs were found to have far more variations during their career cycles than school teachers, who were in a more stable and predictable situation. The study focused on particular moments in the career cycle, exploring TESOLs??? levels of satisfaction. TESOLs in the present study were found to have similar intrinsic satisfactions and concerns about working conditions as the findings of other TESOL studies. Although the occupation was reportedly becoming increasingly more professional, its unpredictable nature made it stimulating and rewarding. In spite of the instability of the TESOL career, TESOLs appeared to have more positive career experiences overall than many school teachers with more stable career paths. The study also examined professional development issues by comparing the perceptions of TESOLs and their trainers / administrators. They had many divergent opinions as to the professional development requirements of TESOLs. While there was no conclusive evidence that professional development could be linked to stages, TESOLs in a phase of diversification were found to have different professional development requirements from other phases. Personal, professional and environmental factors also affect the professional development requirements of TESOLs at any stage. In summary, it appears that the traditional career phase model is inappropriate when applied to TESOLs, and perhaps for other similarly unstable careers. With the recent changes in people???s professional lives, requiring increasing mobility and adaptability in the changing job market, other career path models to guide counselling, professional development and other staff management programs will need to be explored.

This thesis explores the diagnosis of ADHD among adults in the UK. The condition has only recently been defined as a lifelong disorder and extended from childhood to adulthood. Through ethnographic research in a specialist psychiatric clinic and with a patient organisation, this thesis traces the diagnostic process as it takes place in both sites and also between them. It highlights the role of memory practices in the many versions of ADHD that circulate. I outline clinical and lay practices of identifying ADHD. Individuals in the support groups identified with the diagnosis through recognising themselves in other people, as if in a mirror, which I describe as ‘moments of recognition’. In the clinic, the elicitation of medical histories brought contrasting memory practices to the fore, as patients sought evidence from their childhood necessary to a formal diagnosis. Although these memory practices appear distinct, they are combined in practice. This fieldwork led me to concentrate less on the potentially negative medicalisation of human experiences, the main topic of social science research in the field, than the ways in which memory practices were mobilised. These practices were key to the production of evidence-based diagnosis in the clinic and to collective archives in the support groups. Moreover, both types of memory practices informed wider relations. Thus, I explore unexpected ways of making kin such as the manner in which children, more commonly diagnosed with ADHD than adults, ‘made’ their parents in the light of a shared condition. Furthermore, concepts of neurobiology led some research participants to recognise strangers as ‘family’, linked by a common factor and celebrated as neurodiversity. This thesis attends not only to the emerging and mostly unexamined lived experiences of adults with ADHD, but it also contributes to an anthropological exploration of social and caring practices more broadly.

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a condition caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. The diagnosis of FAS is based on the presence of central nervous system impairments, evidence of growth abnormalities and abnormal facial features. Direct anthropometry has traditionally been used to obtain facial data to assess the FAS facial features. Research efforts have focused on indirect anthropometry such as 3D surface imaging systems to collect facial data for facial analysis. However, 3D surface imaging systems are costly. As an alternative, approaches for 3D reconstruction from a single 2D image of the face using a 3D morphable model (3DMM) were explored in this research study. The research project was accomplished in several steps. 3D facial data were obtained from the publicly available BU-3DFE database, developed by the State University of New York. The 3D face scans in the training set were landmarked by different observers. The reliability and precision in selecting 3D landmarks were evaluated. The intraclass correlation coefficients for intra- and inter-observer reliability were greater than 0.95. The average intra-observer error was 0.26 mm and the average inter-observer error was 0.89 mm. A rigid registration was performed on the 3D face scans in the training set. Following rigid registration, a dense point-to-point correspondence across a set of aligned face scans was computed using the Gaussian process model fitting approach. A 3DMM of the face was constructed from the fully registered 3D face scans. The constructed 3DMM of the face was evaluated based on generalization, specificity, and compactness. The quantitative evaluations show that the constructed 3DMM achieves reliable results. 3D face reconstructions from single 2D images were estimated based on the 3DMM. The MetropolisHastings algorithm was used to fit the 3DMM features to 2D image features to generate the 3D face reconstruction. Finally, the geometric accuracy of the reconstructed 3D faces was evaluated based on ground-truth 3D face scans. The average root mean square error for the surface-to-surface comparisons between the reconstructed faces and the ground-truth face scans was 2.99 mm. In conclusion, a framework to estimate 3D face reconstructions from single 2D facial images was developed and the reconstruction errors were evaluated. The geometric accuracy of the 3D face reconstructions was comparable to that found in the literature. However, future work should consider minimizing reconstruction errors to acceptable clinical standards in order for the framework to be useful for 3D-from-2D reconstruction in general, and also for developing FAS applications. Finally, future work should consider estimating a 3D face using multi-view 2D images to increase the information available for 3D-from-2D reconstruction.

The aim of the present study is to explore the motivational factors of Hong Kong vocational students in learning English. A qualitative case study approach was employed with a combination of surveys with self-completion questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and diary notes. The research, which was carried out in two phases from September to June 2005-6 in one academic year, had the objective of examining whether there was any change of motivation for learning English. Ten students from a vocational institute were selected for the interviews, each were interviewed twice. They were also invited to write diaries, and to record their daily English activities. The data collected were used to triangulate with the interview findings when analyzing the results. The study was initiated by students’ differences in learning attitudes and the variations in their standard of English. Research on motivation for, and attitudes towards learning English reveal that instrumental and intrinsic motivations often apply to secondary school and tertiary-level learners, but prior to this study the research did not extend to vocational students in Hong Kong. The findings show that vocational students not only have strong instrumental motivation for learning English but also have intrinsic motivation. It was apparent that in the process of their learning English, participants regarded English as a functional language which was tied up with their career. This finding is the same as that of previous research on attitudes towards learning English of Hong Kong students. In addition, vocational students’ motivation for learning English was found to be influenced and encouraged by many factors, particularly significant others, such as parents. The present study will enable English teachers to have a greater understanding of vocational students’ motives for learning English. This could help to improve teaching strategies, teaching materials and language policies; and, thus, enhance more effective learning of English in the vocational setting of Hong Kong.

The United States is home to hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants who desire to learn English. In contrast to academically-focused English language learners (ELLs), or international students, refugee and immigrant ELLs are often dealing with the stresses of poverty and/or a precarious immigration status, giving them a diverse and complex set of needs that are often not adequately met by ESL programs. Building off a foundation of Activity Theory, Sociocultural Theory, and Language Ecology, which emphasizes an approach to language learning and teaching that does not separate language from the authentic contexts from which it arises (Van Lier, 2002; Leather & Van Dam, 2003; Pennycook, 2010; Swain & Watanabe, 2012; among others), I seek to uncover and address these needs in-context through an ethnography of six Spanish-speaking immigrant ELLs in the western United States. I detail the results of an in-depth analysis of 116 hours of participant observation with these women, paying special attention to their daily routines and how, where, and why they employ English or Spanish. I show how the women's daily routines and participation in Latinx communities curtail much of their need for daily English, how they employ various strategies to get by when they do need English, and how their expressed motivations to learn English are often thwarted by their current life circumstances. I end by summarizing key observations about the ELLs in the study and making general recommendations to ESL programs for how to apply these observations.

Astrocytes, the most abundant glial cell type in the brain, undergo a number of roles in brain physiology; among them, the energetic support of neurons is the best characterized. Contained within astrocytes is the brain’s obligate energy store, glycogen. Through glycogenolysis, glycogen, a storage form of glucose, is converted to pyruvate that is further reduced to lactate and transferred to neurons as an energy source via MCTs. Glycogen is a multi-branched polysaccharide synthesized from the glucose uptaken in astrocytes. It has been shown that glycogen accumulates with age and contributes to the physiological ageing process in the brain. In this study, we compared glycogen distribution between young adults and geriatric mice to understand the energy consumption of synaptic terminals during ageing using computational tools. We segmented and densely reconstructed neuropil and glycogen granules within six (three 4 month old old and three 24 month old) volumes of Layer 1 somatosensory cortex mice brains from FIB-SEM stacks, using a combination of semi-automated and manual tools, ilastik and TrakEM2. Finally, the 3D visualization software, Blender, was used to analyze the dataset using the DBSCAN and KDTree Nearest neighbor algorithms to study the distribution of glycogen granules compared to synapses, using a plugin that was developed for this purpose. The Nearest Neighbors and clustering results of 6 datasets show that glycogen clusters around excitatory synapses more than inhibitory synapses and that, in general, glycogen is found around axonal boutons more than dendritic spines. There was no significant accumulation of glycogen with ageing within our admittedly small dataset. However, there was a homogenization of glycogen distribution with age and that is consistent with published literature. We conclude that glycogen distribution in the brain is not a random process but follows a function distribution.

博士
國立陽明大學
牙醫學系
105
A defect in oral and craniofacial tissues is commonly affected by a number of clinical disorders in oral cavity, and some periodontal pathology often requires surgical reconstruction. Oral surgeons are often confronted with a shortage of oral mucosa to mend the damaged tissues. Tissue engineering is a novel scientific discipline that combines the principles of engineering and biological sciences. Recent studies had demonstrated the bioengineered oral mucosa samples, such as collagen, gelatin or elastin, which can develop a multilayer epithelium in vitro and in vivo. Although the technique of skin substitutes was progressive, however, the biomaterials are unable to keep up with the wound healing time, and inflammatory response resulting in scar formation were happened. On the other hand, resveratrol (trans-3, 4H, 5-trihydroxystilbene, RSV), a phytoalexin belongs to the group of compounds known as stilbenes. It has being studied about antioxidative, anti-proliferative activities, inhibition of cyclo-oxygenases and nitric oxide pathway in mammalian macrophages, the represents a feasible and productive approach to support dermal wound healing. Furthermore, the evidence of RSV in promoting the osteogenesis of human mesenchymal stem cells has been proved. Another part of regenerative medicine, stem cell treatments are an important strategy that introduces new cells into damaged tissue to treat disease or injury, especially human adipose stem cells (hASCs), which are also self-renewable and capable potent in differentiating into multiple cells and tissues. There are three stage in this thesis, in the first stage, we evaluated the synergistic effect of hASCs and RSV contained oral mucosal tissue engineering as a novel induction substrate to support cell infiltration and regulate the acute inflammatory response in oral tissue reconstruction. The results indicate that under the model of RSV contained gelatin and type I collagen biomaterials covered tough defected, histological analysis shown some typical structures of native oral mucosa such as rete ridges and chorial papillae were re-growthed. Calvarial defects in the rat models reveal that osteoinduced hASCs on collagen scaffolds and collagen/RSV provide the most effective means of regenerating bone by μCT images analysis for 3 months repaired. The second stage of thesis was utilized dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) cultured in collagen scaffold for maintained consistent osteogenesis and boosted mineral formation after 1-2 weeks by immunocytochemistry analysis. In the third stage of thesis we labelled stem cells with Quantum Dots (QDs) and implanted by local injection at thoracic 8 spinal cord in rats. The results show the QDs labelled human adipose derived stem cells could be proliferated and migrated into the spinal cord at least 14 days; next we established the central neuron degeneration disease model with middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo) SD rats, we aimed at build a platform of adult stem cell transplantation for central nervous system repair and regeneration. According to these results, the use of adult stem cells combined with collagen scaffold could be used as an effective strategy for oral tissue regeneration. This study produced a robust protocol that is ready for clinical application in the future. We would expect to achieve hard bone, cartilage and nerve tissue degeneration of complex oral and facial reconstruction.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Dentistry, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 1993
Three-dimensional forensic facial reconstruction involves the building up in clay of the soft tissues of the human face onto an unidentified skull to suggest the identity of its owner. Early researchers physically punctured the facial tissues of cadavers at known anthropological to measure their depth. Later workers used radiography, ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging for collecting both depth and surface data on the head and face.
GR 2016

This study analyses the Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy with respect to social development, and adult basic education and training (ABET). Since its adoption as official economic policy, replacing the RDP policy in June 1996, the GEAR strategy has been a subject of much debate, and blamed for all social and economic ills, including job losses and high unemployment, poverty, problems in the education, health and welfare system, as well as poor delivery of social services. Motivated by these debates, the author set out to investigate how GEAR provides / does not provide for social development and ABET, both areas of interest to the author. This study investigates this question based only on a review of literature. While the GEAR strategy makes policy proposals in various aspects of the economy, and sets an economic growth target of 6% per annum by the year 2000, and the creation of 400 000 jobs per annum during the same period (all of which were not met), evidence shows no policy provisions in the GEAR strategy with respect to social development, and ABET. In fact, ABET is not mentioned at all in the GEAR strategy. However, the GEAR strategy makes specific mention of the Human Resources Development Strategy, as a vehicle for addressing education and training problems, thereby improving the skills base of the country. The Human Resources Development Strategy and the National Skills Development Strategy sponsored by the DoE and DoL respectively, all seem to be sound policies. There is however growing evidence that South Africa has developed sound policies which it fails to implement because of lack of capacity and financial resources partly due to the government's acceptance of the neoliberal agenda. This appears to be particularly true with respect to social development and ABET targets in the Human Resources Development and the National Skills Development strategies. This study concludes that the GEAR strategy is based on neoliberal assumptions of stimulating foreign investment, export-led economic growth, global trade and global competition, underpinned by the conception that the state must play a minimal role in the economy and is therefore not appropriate for the social development challenges (especially illiteracy) facing South Africa. If progress is to be made in addressing these challenges in South Africa, an alternative to the GEAR strategy must be found .
Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

Dissertação de mestrado em Enfermagem
O acidente vascular cerebral (AVC) encontra-se nos primeiros lugares da lista de causas de morte a nível mundial, sendo uma causa major de incapacidade funcional no adulto. Nos últimos anos tem-se observado um aumento significativo na incidência desta patologia nas pessoas mais jovens acompanhado pelo o aumento da incapacidade física, com repercussões ao nível na execução do autocuidado. Vivenciar uma transição saúde-doença, acarreta alterações profundas na vida de quem experimenta um processo desta natureza, nomeadamente quando se trata de um adulto jovem. Foi realizado um estudo qualitativo de carácter exploratório e descritivo, tendo como objetivos, explorar, descrever e compreender a perspetiva do adulto jovem sobre o processo de reconstrução da sua autonomia após um AVC gerador de dependência no autocuidado. Optou-se pela entrevista não estruturada, dirigida a seis (N= 6) adultos jovens sobreviventes de AVC. A análise das narrativas das entrevistas foi realizada com recurso à análise de conteúdo. Desta emergiram nove (9) categorias: pontos e eventos críticos; alterações na condição de saúde; consciencialização; envolvimento; condições facilitadoras pessoais e sociais; condições inibidoras pessoais e sociais; indicadores de processo; indicadores de resultado; e cuidados informais. Os resultados sugerem que este percurso se inicia com o evento crítico, o AVC, responsável por mudanças na condição de saúde dos participantes, principalmente ao nível do desempenho do autocuidado. A sua recuperação pressupõe envolvimento, o qual acontece quando existe consciencialização das mudanças. A vivência da transição está rodeada por um conjunto de fatores que podem facilitar ou obstaculizar este percurso. É possível ainda inferir a existência de indicadores de processo relacionados com a ligação dos participantes aos profissionais de saúde e com estratégias de adaptação à nova situação, bem como, a existência de indicadores de resultados, os quais reportam fundamentalmente à mestria e o retorno à vida social. Sendo cada percurso vivenciado individualmente, os enfermeiros devem ajustar as suas práticas recorrendo às terapêuticas de enfermagem revelando-se verdadeiros facilitadores da transição saúde-doença vivida por cada sobrevivente do AVC em geral, e em particular pelo adulto jovem.
The stroke stands in the frontline regarding the list of the world death causes, being itself a major cause of adult functional incapacity. Lately, we have been watching a significant increase in the incidence of this pathology in younger adults followed by a physical incapacity rise, with consequences in terms of the self-care. To undergo a health-disease transition provides profound modifications viewing the life of those who experience such a process of this nature, particularly when it comes to a young adult life. A descriptive, qualitative, and exploratory study has been conducted, which goals pretend to explore, describe and understand the young adult perspective about the autonomy reconstruction process after a self-care dependency triggering stroke. The non structured interview was selected and forwarded to six (6) young adults, who have survived after a stroke. The analysis of the interviews was performed through content analysis. From this last one, nine (9) categories have emerged: points and critical events; health condition alterations; awareness; engagement; personal and social facilitating conditions; personal and social inhibiting conditions; process indicators; outcome indicators and informal care. The results sugest that this pathway begins with a critical event, the stroke, responsible for the modifications in participants` health condition, mostly referring to the self-care performance. Its recovery assumes engagement, which happens when there is awareness of the changes. The living process of the transition is surrounded by a group of factors that might ease up or handicap all this course. Still, it is possible to imply the connection between the participants and the health professionals and with the adaption strategies to the new situation, as well as the existence of result indicators, which basically apply to the social life and mastery. Since each journey is individually experienced, the nurses should adjust their pratice based on the Nursing healing theurapeutics becoming real facilitatiors of the health-disease transition perceived by each stroke survivor, in general, and, in particular, by the young adult.

Autism Spectrum Disorder is an increasingly common developmental disability. Students diagnosed with ASD can be challenging to incorporate into mainstream classrooms due to a lack of understanding and negative attitudes of neurotypical peers towards those students. This thesis aims to address the problem in a unit plan centered on the use of young adult literature with a main protagonist on the Spectrum in the English Language Arts classroom. Specifically, it argues the use of such texts in conjunction with a literature circles unit in providing better understanding and greater acceptance of students with ASD. The unit and lesson plans were written to reflect how Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, Bishop’s windows, doors, and mirrors , and the texts students read can influence their thinking and behavior. Using goodreads and local ELA book lists, I selected four YAL texts which portrayed the main character with ASD as they go about their daily lives. These texts were then incorporated into the twenty-lesson unit plan which aims at supporting positive attitudes and acceptance of neurotypical students towards their peers with ASD.