Discussions sessions have not received much attention within the genre of conference presentations. In this paper, we present the theoretical framework that underlies the approach followed to analyse the multimodal expression of evaluation. Then, an example of the application of the study has been considered necessary to understand it. Corpus linguistics provided the indications to collect the corpus, annotate it and find the appropriate software to digitalise the relevant information for the study. Secondly, genre studies and conversational analysis gave the clues to establish a structure in the linguistic expressions found in the discussion sessions of paper presentations. Thirdly, systemic functional linguistics and pragmatics provided the basis for an evaluative scheme that could be applied to the academic discourse of the corpus, considering its multimodal nature. Fourthly, the tools to observe the non-verbal communication associated with evaluative language were found in multimodal discourse analysis studies. All together, the application of these variables led to an original study of discussion sessions, which deployed interesting results.

Background: Student support services are a broad and important concept in education, each of which is related to a speci c set of hypotheses related to the subject. This lack of theoretical and conceptual ambiguity has led to poor understanding and communication between researchers and policymakers and problems in comparing studies in different elds. The purpose of this study is to explain the student support system in virtual learning environment for medical education. Methods: This study was a qualitative research. An extensive search in scienti c databases was carried out based on predetermined strategies, and 53 documents were reviewed from 1996 until 2019. Data were analyzed based on Hugh McKenna's nine-step approach. Results: According to the literature review, determining the support services of students in virtual learning, providing academic and non-academic services is the responsibility of students' cognitive, emotional and social needs. These services lead to greater student participation in the process of self-learning and academic achievement, which is done at three levels: (pre-program, learning process and postgraduate support services). Student support services were categorized into conceptual areas (level, dimensions, and purpose) and the relationship between these conceptual areas was identi ed. Conclusions: Based on the ndings of this study, student support services in virtual learning can be divided into two categories: academic and non-academic with relevant subcomponents. It is recommended that educators and policy makers use these results to facilitate student support for different types of virtual learning.

Evaluation in academic discourse has received considerable attention from researchers.Much of the work on evaluation has focused, however, on written genres, and less attention has been paid to how evaluation unfolds in spoken academic genres. In our present research, we are interested in disclosing how the interpersonal meaning of evaluation is expressed in the discussion session (hereafter DS) that follows conference paper presentations, since DS has already been defined as an "evaluative forum", when comparing its phraseological patterns with those of the presentation.Though the study of evaluation in spoken genres has been developed focusing exclusively on linguistic aspects, we assume the non-linguistic message that accompanies the linguistic message has an effect on the interpersonal meaning of the communication. Therefore, the aim of our research is to analyse the evaluative meaning conveyed in DSs that follow paper presentations in an applied linguistics conference. In the study, we draw on a social semiotic theory of language and of kinesics and paralanguage to frame a multimodal exploration of this interpersonal meaning. The comparative analysis between linguistic evaluation and multimodal evaluation reveals the significant contribution of non-linguistics features, which are commonly used to intensify linguistic evaluation or to express the speakers' attitude.Key words: discussion sessions, multimodal discourse analysis, conference paper presentations, evaluation, spoken academic discourse, discourse analysis IntroductionConference presentations are one of the first challenges a researcher has to face in his or her career, due to the complexity and inter-relationships between the speech events involved in it. This challenge becomes even more relevant for the non-native speaker when the presentation and the discussion session following it have to be done in 1 querolm@gmail.com 2 fortanet@uji.es English. One of the most complete studies of the genre of conference presentations is that of Räisänen (1999), which situates the conference paper presentation as part of a genre chain. This chain starts with the call for abstracts in a conference and ends either with the oral presentation during the conference or with the publication of the proceedings. This author (1999, p.69) defines conferences as "sites for publishing research results and an open ground for confrontation, discussion, and ratification of meaning". Conference presentations are meant to provide a forum to promote interaction between scholars. It is also important to note the complexity of conference discourse. Ventola (1999) coined the term 'semiotic spanning' to acknowledge the involvement of all modes of communication: written as well as spoken texts, visual materials and actions, among others; they all form a cohesive communication event. She points out that the relationship between all speech events, between the paper presentation and its source materials as well as between the presentation and the final version of the paper, as pub...

From a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) perspective (Kress and Van Leuween,

Today, more and more universities in Spain are starting to design language policies, usually including Spanish and English. At the same time, Spain has a special socio-political context since part of its territory is already bilingual. This paper examines the opinions and attitudes of academics at a bilingual Valencian-Spanish university which is about to implement a multilingual policy adding English as a third language of instruction. Therefore, in order to start planning the implementation of the teacher development programme and complementary communication campaigns that are part of the recently approved policy, it was considered important to determine the beliefs of academics regarding their proficiency in the three languages involved and the ways to teach in them (Borg 2003). A questionnaire was distributed to a stratified sample of the lecturers at Universitat Jaume I in order to find out what lecturers believed to be their competence in the three priority languages and to identify what they regarded as the main pedagogical styles used in their discipline. Additionally, lecturers were asked, by means of a semi-structured discussion, about their attitudes towards multilingual teaching. The results of this study shed some light on teacher training needs regarding language and pedagogy and allow for suggestions as to possible measures in support of implementing multilingual language policies.