Lin Pettersson. Mobile-Assisted Learning and Higher-Education ESP: English for Physiotherapy. The Poznań Society for the Advancement of Arts and Sciences, PL ISSN 0079-4740, pp. 81-94The popularity of Mobile-assisted language learning has increased significantly in recent years, and language teachers are still exploring different ways of introducing new technology into the language classroom. Up to the moment, this has mainly been achieved through the use of mobile language-learning applications (Grimshaw et al. 2017). We wanted to push the use of applications in the classroom of English for Specific Purposes further by introducing a human anatomy application in the context of English for physiotherapy in higher education. We believe that the use of an application for a specific area provides the opportunity to enrich the learning experience and take language-learning outcomes to a different level as students are granted a unique occasion of applying knowledge acquired in a specialist area in the language classroom. An intervention proposal was designed for the subject English for physiotherapy (University of Málaga, Spain) bringing together mobile-assisted language learning with a task-based approach to suit constructivist learning processes and accommodate different learning styles and rhythms. We followed five guiding principles on mobile-assisted language learning (Stockwell & Hubbard 2013) to design three tasks for autonomous and collaborative learning using the application 3D4 Medical Essential Anatomy. A preliminary survey was carried out using Lime Survey to measure under-graduate physiotherapy students' attitudes towards the use of a human anatomy application to learn English and to predict possible challenges (language, technology, cost or storage capacity). The results support our belief as the obtained data indicates that students perceived the use of a human anatomy application as an interdisciplinary tool for both educational and professional purposes and were willing to purchase an application to learn English for physiotherapy.
Abstract:As early career students face new challenges at university, the relationship between second language skills and academic success depends upon self-perception to a greater extent than previously assumed. Up to the moment, most levelling courses have focused on developing students' skills in specific subjects in order to bridge the gap between the knowledge that the high school alumni have and university teachers expect them to possess. Yet, early academic failure remains elevated. For this reason, we have decided to focus our English Degree levelling course on academic strategies, expectations and procedures with the aim to disclose the role of students' self-perception on second language performance in an academic context. We have designed a two-staged method consisting of a survey and a standardized placement test to measure learners' self-perception. The results of both stages are measured by following a mixed method procedure, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. Results show that there is a close relationship between students' self-concepts, academic expectations, and final outcomes. When the learning of new contents occurs by means of a foreign language, the implications of learners' confidence and their academic awareness are even clearer. Therefore, we conclude that learners' self-concepts, and awareness of their academic expectations should play a key role in initial undergraduate training.
ABSTRACT. The contemporary fascination with historical, social and literary representations of the deviant body calls for new understandings of corporeality that question the body as a purely biological entity, and invites readings of corporeality as culturally inflected. The present article explores neo-Victorian enfreakment through the lens of "somatechnics" reading "[e]mbodiment as the incarnation or materialisation of historically and culturally specific discourses and practises" (Sullivan and Murray 2014: 3). I will apply the concept of somatechnics to (neo-)Victorian enfreakment practises drawing on scholars as Bordo (1993), Grosz (1994), Sullivan and Murray (2014)
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