مطالب

With its prevalence as a global language, universities in Vietnam have striven to enhance students’ proficiency in English. This endeavor responds to the language requirements set by Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MoET), the prominence of English as a medium of instruction in higher education, and the necessity of preparing students for better employability. This study focuses on General English programs currently deployed in most universities in Vietnam in terms of expected learning outcomes, course design and assessment practices. Drawing on document analysis, it examines the General English program of a public university and a private one in Ho Chi Minh City in relation to these three components. Findings show that these universities conformed to MoET’s policy on language education but developed different approaches to language program design and assessment in order to achieve their respective learning outcomes and ensure the quality of language learning and teaching in their own contexts. This study provides course designers, coordinators and language teachers with in-depth understandings of the deployment of General English programs and the theoretical bases underpinning such processes. These insights will enable them to become more aware of the elements constituting such programs and the considerations to be taken in updating and innovating the language curricula.

The Analects of Confucius is one of the representative works of traditional Chinese culture and has been translated into different versions. Tsai Chih-Chung's English comic version is one of the most popular among the different translated versions. It has a considerable potential to spread Chinese culture by multimodal means. A brief review shows that so far, there have been few studies on Tsai Chih-Chung's Chinese classic comics from the perspective of multimodality. This study applies the analytical framework based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s “Visual Grammar” to Tsai Chih-Chung's English comic version of The Analects of Confucius, attempting to explore how the visual modes realize three meta-meanings in the English comic version. Through the analysis, it is found that the images in Tsai Chih-Chung's English comic version fully realize the representational meaning, interactive meaning and compositional meaning. Furthermore, most of the images in Tsai Chih-Chung's English comic version realize more than just one meta-meaning, and more frequently include all three meta-meanings. By combining the texts and images organically, Tsai Chih-Chung's English comic version has been successful in attracting readers to read the classic, deepening the readers’ understanding of the classic and finally making them accept the cultural essence embedded in it. This study provides a case reference for the analysis of multimodal discourse in Chinese classic comics, and also contributes to optimizing Chinese classic comics’ design and innovation.

Cognitive Training (CT) refers to programs designed to enhance the efficiency of cognitive and brain mechanisms through practice and/or intentional instruction. A highly controversial issue in the field of Computerized Cognitive Training (CCT) is its possible transferability to non-trained areas; one untouched discipline is second language (L2) learning. Hence, due to the facilitative role of attention and the predictive strength of working memory in L2 development and comprehension, CCT seems necessary for English language learners. Furthermore, few studies have investigated users’ perceptions of potential improvements in their cognitive functioning. To fill such inherent gaps and overcome the imposed barriers of conducting intervention studies during the COVID-19 pandemic era, this study adopted an interdisciplinary approach to explore English language learners’ self-perceived Far Transfer (FT) effects of Remote Adaptive Multi-Domain Computerized Cognitive Training (RAMCCT) in general cognitive functioning and L2-specific cognitive functioning. Thus, online observations of L2 receptive skills courses (reading and listening) and synchronous semi-structured interviews were undertaken with a convenience sample of 11 intermediate EFL learners who completed eight weeks of RAMCCT. Thematic Analysis (TA) revealed perceived advances in working memory, attention, multitasking, processing speed, hand-eye/ear coordination in general cognitive functioning, and improvements in either one or both of the L2 receptive skills in terms of attention and comprehension and speed. The results are discussed by the corresponding links between attention, working memory, and multitasking, together with the automatization of the core cognitive processes. Implications address game designers, L2 teachers, teacher training programs, and researchers.

Environmental protection is one of the most important human concerns, for which several actions have been taken. Organizations are no exception to this rule and have taken one of the most basic and important actions in the form of green organizational behavior of employees. Green organizational behavior of employees owes to various factors that organizational support is one of the most important. Paying attention to such issues creates a new and constructive approach in organizations, which is considered as green organizational support. The main purpose of this study is to identify and explain the elements of green organizational support as a new approach to reinforcement and enhancing the green organizational behavior of employees that using a mixed method. The approach used in this method is a concurrent triangulation strategy that taken in two qualitative-qualitative phases. In these phases, two qualitative methods of "Expert Panel-Grounded Theory" have been used, respectively. The main tool used in both quality phases is interviews, which uses 6 experts in the first quality phase, 11 people as academic and executive experts in the second phase, respectively. According to the research findings, in the panel of experts 6 thematic axes were extracted and in the second qualitative phase, 19 components were classified into six main categories of grounded theory. The results of the study indicate that green organizational support can positively affect employees attitudes to green behaviors, and in addition, the organization, managers or colleagues can adopt approaches to support employees who perform their duties be effective and provide an opportunity to create a supportive organizational environment for employees.