Though moral aspects of English language teaching (ELT) have recently attracted much attention, moral dilemmas teachers encounter have not been given the sustained attention they deserve. The present ...study was conducted to document the types and frequencies of moral dilemmas ELT instructors face and the likely differences between the pattern of moral dilemmas experienced and less experienced, male and female ELT practitioners deal with. Forty teachers participated in stimulated recall and focus group interviews. Results showed that teachers are mainly concerned with dilemmas raised from Rules and Regulations. Experience was found to affect both the order and the frequency of the dilemmas teachers faced in different groups. Gender, however, did not result in significant changes in the pattern of moral dilemmas experienced by participants.
The present study was carried out to develop and validate an L2 teacher reflection instrument. For this purpose, a six component model of second language (L2) teacher reflection, encompassing ...practical, cognitive, meta-cognitive, affective, critical and moral reflection, was developed using experts' opinion and a comprehensive review of the related literature. This initial model was then operationalized in an instrument consisting of 42 items, i.e. 7 behavioral items for each component. The piloting and testing of the tentative model through exploratory and confirmatory data analyses on a sample of 300 ESL teachers reduced the instrument to 29 items, removing the “morality” factor, and reducing the items in the “affective” factor to half.
A new modelling framework is proposed to predict the inelastic features in elastomers’ mechanical behaviour such as the Mullins effect, the permanent set and the induced anisotropy. While based on ...the pseudo-elasticity theory, our model departs from the classical theory on three counts: (i) a separable damage parameter Ω, separable in the principal stretches, is devised and incorporated to facilitate capturing the induced anisotropy; (ii) the damage variable is directly incorporated into the hyperelastic strain energy function to capture the permanent set, and (iii) a specific functional form for the damage parameter is considered, conducive to modelling the foregoing behaviours. The devised framework is then specialised using a recently proposed strain energy function W and is validated against various experimental datasets ranging from filled natural and silicon rubbers, to synthetic rubbers and hydrogels. It is shown that the proposed model favourably captures the inelastic behaviours of interest exhibited by the specimens, and the devised modelling framework facilitates obtaining those favourable fits via a reduced number of model parameters compared with the existing theories in the literature. The proposed framework may also be used directly in conjunction with other strain energy functions for a versatile modelling of the Mullins effect in the finite deformation of rubber-like materials.
•A new modelling framework for capturing the Mullins effect in elastomers.•Incorporating discontinuous softening, permanent set and the induced anisotropy.•Devising a novel separable (in principal stretches) damage parameter.•Application to a wide range of elastomers including filled rubbers and hydrogels.•Accurate modelling results with a low number of parameters and computational costs.
In the literature dealing with L2 teacher training and education numerous references are made to the concept of reflective teaching and teachers and teacher educators are encouraged to engage in ...reflective practices. The present paper, however, argues that in our attempt to empower teachers to become more efficient practitioners, we have lost sight of some important practical as well as theoretical considerations. Historically and theoretically, reflection has been influenced by many trends and philosophies which make the term reflection open to different interpretations. In addition, current reflective views lack a critical dimension since the emphasis has mostly been on rational aspects of the term. From a practical viewpoint, most of the stress has been on retrospective accounts of reflection, not on the prospective, creative aspects of the concept. Moreover, there is no evidence to show improved teacher or student performance resulting from reflective techniques and almost no acknowledgement of teachers’ personality in such discussions. Finally, too much emphasis on reflective practices and teachers’ practical knowledge might result in isolation from the language teaching discourse community.
This paper introduces three innovative frameworks to obtain the strain energy function for rubber-like materials through an inverse approach. To this end, we inspire from the statistical background ...of physically motivated models to represent the strain energy function in terms of variables that correspond to the kinetics of a polymeric chain. We employ the micro-sphere concept to cast different structure-based models with unknown core functions or kernels and reveal them directly from experimental data. Accordingly, we use the basis spline (B-Spline) curve to represent these core functions and derive the macroscopic stress tensor based on the unknown control points associated with the B-Spline curves. Following this, we define a loss function to tie experimental data to these unknown control points, followed by a least-square error minimization technique that ultimately leads to a linear system of equations. In this way, we circumvent the nonlinear optimization in current structure-based models used for material parameter fitting that comes with the solution’s uncertainty. We also minimize simplifying hypotheses and bypass the unnecessary assumptions that have been influenced the accuracy of physical-based methods. Furthermore, one can integrate these functions with a high accuracy scheme over the micro-sphere, resulting in an integration-free model with competitive computational complexity to closed-form models. Finally, we validate the robustness of each framework in a challenging benchmark for three different polymeric materials. Considering the same dataset for the calibration of all models( which is uniaxial, pure shear, and equi-biaxial tests), the proposed frameworks outperform other well-known physical-based models in the literature in this challenging benchmark to the best of our knowledge ( we also show that the same performance is attainable by using only uniaxial and equi-biaxial tests ). Moreover, in the case of a limited dataset, we show that it is possible to apply prior knowledge regarding a material into one of the frameworks (RFN) to enhance the accuracy of predictions.
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•Strain energy density of elastomers is extracted directly from experimental data.•No explicit assumption for the strain energy functions of a polymeric chain.•Model calibration through the solution of a linear system of equations.•Remarkable performance with two sets of data and integration-free models.•Ability to apply knowledge and calibrate the model with single uniaxial test.
This paper studies the difference between the pedagogical thought units of ELT practitioners with English-relevant degrees and those with non-relevant degrees. An entire teaching session of eight EFL ...teachers' performance was video recorded and their pedagogical thoughts were identified by using stimulated recall technique. The findings revealed that, in general, teachers with English-related degrees significantly reported more pedagogical thoughts than their colleagues with unrelated degrees. With respect to the categories of pedagogical thoughts, although the same families were reported by participants in both groups, there were slight differences in their rankings and significant differences in their frequency. Author abstract
Second language teacher education community has become increasingly interested in the pedagogical knowledge base of teachers as a window into practitioners' mental lives. The present study was ...conducted to document likely differences between the pedagogic thoughts of experienced and less experienced teachers. In this study experienced teachers were defined as those with more than six years experience, and less experienced those with less than two years of teaching experience. Eight teachers teaching general English courses in two private language institutes in Tehran participated in the project. Data were collected through the use of stimulated recall. The analysis of the data shows that there are differences both in the number and the order of the thoughts teachers produced in different groups. Experienced teachers produced an average of five pedagogical thoughts per minute, while their less experienced counterparts produced 3 thoughts. The top thought category for less experienced teachers was Language Management, while for the experienced teachers Self- Reflection ranked first. Some thought categories were also absent in the report of less experienced practitioners. Author abstract, ed
This study determines the major categories of English language teacher educators' pedagogical knowledge base. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five teachers, teacher ...educators and university professors (15 participants in total). The results of data analysis indicated that teacher educators' pedagogical knowledge encompasses eight macro categories; namely, knowledge of language and related disciplines, knowledge of ELT theories, skills and techniques, knowledge of context and social relations, knowledge of class, time and learning management, knowledge of research and professional development, knowledge of practicum, knowledge of teachers and their assessment, and knowledge of reflective and critical teaching. Among these categories, the first four ones are shared by language teachers, while the rest belong to the domain of teacher educators. The findings also revealed no significant statistical difference among the categories proposed by the three groups of the participants. The results are discussed and suggestions are provided for future research. Author abstract
This qualitative study aimed at investigating the reasons for burnout among Iranian English language teachers who were teaching in public Iranian high schools. To this aim, 15 male and female ...teachers who had scored high on the Maslach Burnout Inventory were selected and studied through semi-structured interview, journal keeping and observation methods. Qualitative content analysis of the collected data showed that students’ low proficiency, lack of support from administrators, student misbehavior, students’ lack of interest in learning English, time limitation and class oversize were among the major reasons for Iranian English language teacher burnout. The results support the recent renewal of the English language teaching curriculum for schools, but they have further implications for policy-makers.
Numerous functions in pathogenic
Pectobacterium
are regulated by quorum sensing (QS). Two different
aiiA
genes isolated from
Bacillus
sp. A24(
aiiA
A24
) and
Bacillus
sp
.
DMS133(
aiiA
DMS133
) were ...used. Both genes encode acyl-homoserine lactonase (AiiA), which disrupts QS in
Pectobacterium
. To investigate the effect of different AiiAs on the inhibition of
Pectobacterium carotovorum
pathogenicity, two
aiiA
genes from different Bacillus strains were cloned and the resulting plasmids pME6863 (aiiA
A24
) and pME7080 (aiiA
DMS133
) were transformed into
P. carotovorum
EMPCC cells. The effects of different lactonases on virulence features such as enzymatic activity, twitching and swimming motilities, and production of pellicle and biofilm formation were investigated. In EMPCC/pME6863, twitching and swimming motilities, and pellicle production were significantly reduced compared with EMPCC/pME7080. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to measure virulence gene expression in transformed cells compared with expression levels in wild-type EMPCC. The expression of
peh
and
hrpL
genes was greatly reduced in EMPCC/pME6863 compared with EMPCC/pME7080. The sequence alignment and molecular dynamic modeling of two different AiiA
A24
and AiiA
DMS133
proteins suggested that the replacement of proline 210 from AiiA
A24
to serine in AiiA
DMS133
caused the reduction of enzyme activity in AiiA
DMS133
.
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