Don’t go all “TED Talks” on them, but... make a good presentation! – teaching the oral genre through the didactic sequence procedures

Language teaching in a higher education (HE) environment is complex and challenging, much more so when we consider the contemporary demands concerning the additional languages, specifically, English. We start from the understanding that a genre-based approach in teaching is established as a positive strategy for teaching/learning and developing students’ linguistics skills. However, reflections and questions emerge when, as professors, we discuss the role of the HE and its disciplines in potentializing students' actions through language in real social practices, which can contribute to their personal and professional development. Our premise, as well as a problem, considering there seems to be a gap regarding this point, is that academic oral genres should be taught in a systematic and clear way in HE. Seeking to solve this problem, by the supports of Applied Linguistics, we structured two questions to guide this qualitative and exploratory study: 1) What would be an appropriate theory-oriented approach to support the teaching of oral genres in HE? 2) Considering the HE contexts, what would an achievable proposal aiming at the mastery of an oral genre be like? In order to answer these questions, we brought a theoretical discussion and also a Didactic Sequence (DS) regarding oral presentations in academic events as a proposal to show that the Socio-discursive Interactionism and the DS model can be powerful educators’ allies in planning and organizing classes that allow students to perform through language in different academic routines

Postwar Industrial Media Culture in Sweden, 1945-1960

During the 1950s, companies aiming for international markets demanded new theories and methods of communication. Ideas regarding cybernetics, systems analysis, new accounting practices, and budgetary principles as well as theories of information, communication, marketing, public relations, and organization were discussed at conferences, seminars, and courses, and in articles and books. At the same time, new technologies changed corporate communication, from a loose-leaf accounting system to mechanical and electronic business machines, from written texts and oral presentations to slide shows, audio tapes, films, television, and flannelgraphs. By looking at a vast array of objects and relations related to uses of media technologies in Swedish industry from the end of World War II to the breakthrough of television, this book shows what happened in the glitches between mass communication and interaction, and how Swedish postwar industry worked to disrupt established understandings of communication.

19th Congress of the European Society for Dermatology and Psychiatry (ESDaP) and 2nd Brain Skin Colloquium Conference (BSC), 11–13 June 2021, London

The Congress of the European Society for Dermatology and Psychiatry (ESDaP), held in conjunction with the 2nd Brain Skin Colloquium conference, hosted over 60 speakers delivering 47 oral presentations, 41 poster presentations and 5 keynote talks via 2 simultaneous livestream platforms. The two day conference, held biennially, was due to be hosted in London and was converted into a virtual format because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report endeavours to present a synopsis of the conference.

7th Interscholastic Student HIV & Sexual Health Research Symposium 2021

On Wednesday 23 June 2021 a one-day event was hosted by Auckland University of Technology’s (AUT) Child and Youth Health Research Centre (CYHRC) at South Campus, Manukau City. This annual event was initiated in 2014 and is a collaboration by researchers from AUT, University of Auckland and Massey University. It aims to provide an opportunity for postgraduate students with projects focusing on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Sexual Health to present their studies and to meet and network with other researchers with similar interests. This successful event incorporated much stimulating discussion with the oral presentations by postgraduate students; and there were 40 attendees (both face to face and online) from academic, NGO and public sectors, including New Zealand Aids Foundation (NZAF), District Health Boards, GP clinics. The presentations demonstrated a wide range of topics including HIV counselling programmes in India; blood donor policies among Gay and Bisexual Men in New Zealand; and the role of social media apps in providing sexual and reproductive health information for users. An innovation in 2021 was that of a plenary session at the end of the presentations providing a general forum for discussion based on the theme, 'HIV and Sexual Health in a Post Covid World. Key experts and students discussed their experiences led by a panel of four HIV/Sexual Health researchers. Indigenous Pacific perspectives were also shared along with policy directions and implications. Key takeaways relevant within the post covid context were the need for more research support in the field of HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health and the impact of HIV/Sexual Health among vulnerable marginalised groups. Here in this special section of vol 4 of Pacific Health, 2021, we present the abstracts from the oral presentations.

Professors' Perceptions and Evaluations of Students Who Do and Do Not Stutter Following Oral Presentations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptual ratings and performance evaluations of students who do and do not stutter by professors who require oral presentations. Additionally, this study sought to investigate the influence of behaviors related to communication competence on perceptual and evaluative ratings. Method: One hundred fifty-eight college instructors who require oral presentations in their classes participated in this study. Participants viewed one video of four possible randomized conditions: (a) presence of stuttering + low communication competence, (b) absence of stuttering + low communication competence, (c) presence of stuttering + high communication competence, and (d) absence of stuttering + high communication competence. Participants evaluated student performance against a standardized rubric and rated the student along 16 personality traits. Results: Results of separate 2 × 2 analyses of variance revealed professors' view and evaluate students presenting with high communication competence more positively overall, regardless as to whether stuttering is present or not. Significant interactions between fluency (i.e., presence vs. absence of stuttering) and communication competence (i.e., high vs. low) were found for negative personality traits, as well as delivery evaluation scores. The video for which the student stuttered and presented with low communication competence was rated more positively than the video for which the student did not stutter and presented with low communication competence. Conclusions: Professors perceive and evaluate students who stutter differently from their nonstuttering peers, and those ratings are moderated by levels of communication competence. High-communication-competence behaviors improved perceptual and evaluation scores; however, in the presence of low-communication-competence behaviors, professors overcorrect in the form of positive feedback bias, which may have negative long-term academic consequences.

Preface

Supported by I-Shou University and Xi’an University of Technology, the 7th International Conference on Water Resource and Environment (WRE2021) was successfully held online via Microsoft Teams Meeting from November 1-4, 2021. About 150 participants from 31 countries and areas, including United Kingdom, Uruguay, Romania, China, Russia, Germany, Thailand, Japan, India, Malaysia, United States, South Africa, Portugal, Canada, Indonesia, Norway, Poland, Vietnam, Philippines, Greece, Slovakia, Uzbekistan, Italy, etc., have joined the conference. The technical program of WRE2021 comprised 4 keynote speeches, 24 invited speeches, 72 oral presentations and 21 poster presentations. Two welcome speeches were delivered separately by the Conference General Chair Prof. Jiwei Zhu from Xi’an University of Technology (lasted for 10 minutes) and the Technical Program Committee Chair Prof. Chih-Huang Weng from I-Shou University (lasted for 10 minutes). Four keynote speeches were delivered by Emeritus Prof. S. A. Abbasi from Pondicherry University (India), Prof. Dominic C. Y. Foo from University of Nottingham Malaysia (Malaysia), Prof. Teik-Thye Lim from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and Assoc. Prof. Rengui Jiang from Xi’an University of Technology (China), each keynote speech was lasted for 45 minutes including questions and answers. List of WRE2021 Scientific Committee Members are available in the pdf.

Editorial

On the behalf of the organizing committee of the International Conference on Electronics, Electrical and Information Engineering (ICEEIE2021) held during September 24th-26th, 2021 in Changsha, Hunan, China, Due to the Covid-19, there were travel restriction for every scholars who were linked with this event, by using Zoom conference system and physical venues in different sponsors’ university, we enjoyed 3 keynote speeches and oral presentations made by the authors which lasted for 15 minutes each, a lot of inspiration sparked during the Q&A parts, thanks to the modern technology and dedication of every committee member, we finally made this conference, to sum up I would like to present you all this proceeding: A strong mixture of academia and industry was the key aspect of this year’s conference. ICEEIE 2021 promotes research and developmental activities in the field of Electronics, Electrical and Information Engineering along with exchange of knowledge, ideas and information among the researchers, practitioners and scholars from all over the world. Researchers who have contributed their work to the conference shared their findings and experience with other researchers and attendee. Many attendees without any contribution of research paper have also been allowed to attend the conference to gain knowledge in their respective areas. With all contributions from the participants, 74 papers are final accepted from 215 submissions. Those accepted ones are well categorized into six sectors as follows:Information Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Automation Control, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, IOT & Data Sciences, Intelligent System, Information Security. List of Committees are available in this pdf.