Emerging Research Efficacy Through Scaffolded Research Practice: An EFL Preservice Teacher Autobiographical Narrative

EFL preservice teachers ’ research efficacy, as perceived competence to perform tasks in research, is crucial to their research engagement. This autobiographical narrative inquiry investigates the contribution of scaffolded research practice to a female EFL preservice teacher ’s research efficacy.The data were collected through conversations, notes, journals, and portfolios. The findings suggest that teacher research efficacy was pliable through scaffolded research practice. It emerged gradually over time, in different places with social and personal interaction. The factors contributing to the emerging research efficacy were: teacher educators ’ support, peers ’ support,and research participation. The study sheds light on teacher educators and EFL preservice teachers,with the intention of establishing an inquiry-based pedagogy for M.Ed. programs.

FMRI contributions to addressing autobiographical memory impairment in temporal lobe pathology

Episodic autobiographical memory(AM) allows one, through the recollection of sensory-perceptual details, thoughts and feelings, to become aware of an event as belonging to one's own past as well as being able to project into one's future. Because AM provides a sense of self-continuity, contributes to the integrity of the self, and helps predicting future experiences, any deficit of AM may have debilitating consequences for everyday life functioning. Understanding AM failure and the underlying neural mechanisms has the potential to shed light on brain reorganization mechanisms and engagement of compensatory processes. Functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) provides the most promising imaging method to tackle these issues. We reviewed evidence from the few studies that used fMRI to investigate the functionality of the residual tissue, the neural reorganization and compensatory mechanisms in patients with neurological conditions due to impaired medial temporal lobe. Overall, these studies highlight the importance of the left hippocampus, which when atrophied and not functional leads to AM deficits but its residual functionality may support relatively normal AM recollection. When damaged hippocampal tissue is not functional, other brain regions(e.g., the medial prefrontal cortex) may be involved to compensate impairment, but they appear generally ineffective to support detailed episodic recollection.

Under the autobiographical codes： A close reading to Daughter of hunger

In the book Daughter of hunger, the author depicted us the lives of city paupers in the 1960s of China, a generation that is born neither quiet nor peaceful, and a generation that is destined to suffer more in their teenage years. The word ＂hunger＂ has multiple implications, during her journey of searching for her father, we will see how Liuliu, the main character of the book, struggled with the infertility in both material and spiritual worlds, how she tried to embrace the erotic love to confirm her rather painfully real self-existence, and how life and destiny eventually lead her out of the ordinaries.

Adult Education and Training in Portugal： A Multi-case Study Focused on Autobiographical Experiences

In our actual framework of constant social and cultural changing, we are witnessing a transformation of the adults＇ patterns and pathways of life. Currently, people＇s lives cannot be analyzed using a macro-perspective, marked by partitioning phases, but the various stages we undergo from childhood to the third age are being overlapped and this is reflected with particular relevance in the field of learning, where the notion of lifelong learning is present in our personal, social and professional everyday contexts, in Portugal, the New Opportunities Initiative is building new and innovative education and training pathways, which privilege the autobiographical methods, where adults, from their life stories, are challenged to resort to new ways of valuing their experiences, potentiating the acquisition of new skills, in a logic of personal, social and professional empowerments. This formative/training logic has shown to be the promoter of a growing autonomy from the adults. We will present, here, the qualitative multi-case study we are developing in this area, which is centered on adults＇/professionals＇ autobiographies and focuses on the understanding of adult education, lifelong learning and on the analysis of the mediation figures associated with them.

The Destruction of a Genius——Comment on Jack London's autobiographical novel"Martin Eden

Living a dynamic life physically,intellectually and politically, Jack London had a career that was representative of the vigor of his time with working-class origins, he was, in some of his literary and political writing,one of the most articulate and militant spokesmen of his class. His work is absent from many American authologies,but included in some. "Martin Eden", London’s most autobiographical novel,is considered by many critics to be his most mature work which is read all over the world.

Cristina Campo, the Aristocrat of Modern Literature: On Autobiographical Instance in Her Literary Work

In the present article,the attention is focused on autorepresentational image that can be derived from Cristina Campo’s literary language,while analyzing at the same time its genesis,given finalities and reception.It is what can be deduced in filigrain from essayistic-critical writings in The Unforgivable Ones(Gli imperdonabili)and Under a False Name(Sotto falso nome),as well as from collections of letters and illuminating lyrical motifs,based on which it will be demonstrated that analogous themes are associated to various literary genres on grounds of principle of inter-genre contamination.By illustrating the founding postulates of autopoetic reflections,the intention is to ulteriorly determine their collocation within the frame of cultural history.To veiled autobiographism contributes pseudonymical practice,as well as subsequent stylistic devices,through which modernistic aspects are highlighted.The autobiographical narration in The Golden Walnut(La noce d’oro),short story-fairy tale of aesthetic timbre frequently infused with figural tropism,comprises a literary mixture of rievocation and mythography,relying on anthropological premises that are speculatively articulated.

Learning,Teaching,and Researching in Shadow Education in Hong Kong:An Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry

Purpose:This article aims to illustrate from the author’s insider perspective the lived experiences of engaging in private tutoring in Hong Kong as a tutee,a tutor,and a researcher and draw implications on several issues arising from the prevalence of shadow education.Design/Approach/Methods:This article adopted an autobiographical narrative approach.Data were collected through the author’s memoir of events,stimulated by the tutorial materials he used when he was a tutee and a tutor,his own video-recorded lessons of tutoring,and reflective journals from his research projects.Findings:Various issues are discussed based on the narrative of the author playing different roles in the tutoring industry,including(1)the positive and negative washback on mainstream education,(2)the lack of strict regulation of the quality of tutors and advertisements,and(3)how shadow education may exacerbate education inequality and how some tutorial companies and nonprofit organizations are addressing the issue.Originality/Value:This article,to the best of the author’s knowledge,is the only one that discusses the issues of shadow education from an author’s own personal experiences as a tutee,a tutor,and a researcher.It illustrates how practices and policies of the private tutoring industry are evolving in Hong Kong from an insider perspective.

Writing Poetry that Focuses on the Autobiographical

Poetry has other possibilities than the autobiographical. This essay presents an argument against an over-reliance on a Western bourgeois capitalist concept of the self and self-expression in contemporary American poetry. An alternative balance is presented through Zen Buddhist and Daoist perspectives on the self, particularly as seen in the writing of Dogen, ancient Chinese poetry, and, more recently, David Hinton.

Physiological and Psychological Effects of Scent of Soil on Human Beings

This study examines heart rate and heart rate fluctuation when subjects are presented with the scent of soil and their psychological changes as expressed by scores of the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) as indexes. In the experiment, we directed the subjects to rest in a sitting position for 5 min. (Pre.), to smell the scent for 1 min. (No Stim., Stim.), and to rest in a sitting position for 15 min. (Post 5, Post 10, Post 15). Psychological evaluation was performed before and after the experiment (Pre., Post). The scent stimulation was made by opening/closing a bottle with screw-on cap that contained the soil. In the control group, the bottle is always closed. In the stimulus group, the bottle was opened only at the time of Stim. For the physiological evaluation, although we could observe no change in the control group, in the stimulation group, the subjects’ heart rates decreased at Stim. and Post 15. For the psychological evaluation, VAS scores of “Feel relaxed” and “Feel soothed” increased and POMS scores of “Strain-Uneasiness”, “Anger-Hostility”, and “Confusion” decreased. In open-ended questions, some of the subjects recalled memories of insect-collecting, horticulture, forests and parks. There was a negative correlation between heart rate decrease (Stim.) and increase in the VAS scores of “Feel relaxed” (r = -0.896, p < 0.001) and “Feel soothed” (r = -0.684, p = 0.014). The healing effects from the scent of soil included subjects’ memories that were considered to have influenced the heart rate.

The Universal Mother Metaphor in Tremblay＇s For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again

Although reviewers of Tremblay＇s play For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again （1998） focus on the monologues of the angry mother who rants about everyday concerns for the well-being of her child, a character much like the one who initiated Tremblay＇s career （the old song）, the author will focus on how the narrator＇s memory of his mother stage by stage in his life enacted before our eyes, permits Tremblay to self-consciously explain that his artistry reaches far beyond bringing the people he knew best in his youth, who had no knowledge of theater history, acting, and directing and staging, to the stage. His growth as an artist and his ＂new songs＂ are a result of his own continuous development of that knowledge

Creating Space for Children’s Voices: Utility of the Collage Life Story Elicitation Technique

A challenge for many School-Based Family Counseling(SBFC)practitioners,child psychotherapists and researchers are finding ways to give voice to children and eliciting trustworthy and detailed narratives that could serve as resource for understanding the needs of young clients in the context of all their interpersonal networks.Children are often reticent when asked to self-disclose and tell their stories during consultation.The purpose of the present study was to examine the utility of five sequential steps constituting the Collage Life Story Elicitation Technique(CLET)for scaffolding storytelling among children in middle childhood(aged 9-12 years).Using the CLET for data collection and conducting an interpretive analysis,the researchers explored the performance of 38 middle-childhood children living in three different settings.Findings suggest that the five sequential steps of the CLET adequately and satisfactorily combine to stimulate and elicit rich data and help children to construct their narratives and represent the challenges they face in everyday living.We discuss the application of CLET in SBFC practice as tool when screening and intervention planning for children’s perspectives pertaining to a range of topics regarding each of the four quadrants as proposed in the SBFC metamodel.

The Role of Photographs and Time Lag on Positivity Ratings of Vaca­tion and Weekend Memories

Two studies examined the question of whether photograph taking of an event influences the positivity of the evaluations of the event at a later point in time.Memories of photographed events yielded higher positivity ratings than memories that were not photographed.Although we expected fading of positivity ratings to occur more slowly over a period of two months for memories of photographed events,we found faster affect fading for those memories in Study 2 instead.The findings of the two studies support the idea that taking photographs of events sustains the affective reconstruction of autobiographical memories,regardless of whether these events are special,such as vacation memories,or more mundane,such as memories of the past weekend.

Lost and Found： Storytelling in Language Counseling

This article explores the potential of the narrative educational processes of autobiographical writing and interactive storytelling for foreign language education. In our Autonomous Learning Modules （ALMS） at Helsinki University Language Centre, students write various autobiographical texts as part of their language portfolios. The texts are discussed in the face-to-face counseling meetings. Finnish students＇ learner identities are influenced by the competitive role of English in Finland： mastering English is a must, and not mastering English can single them out as failures. This is especially true of self-identified ＂different＂ learners whose previous language learning experiences and classroom situations have caused them anxiety. In ALMS, counselors engage them in sharing stories about past learning experiences as a way of supporting them in planning their personal study programs. Storytelling also helps them to explore their ＂wounded＂ learner identities by creating safe spaces for reflexive self- study. The practice and research of such storytelling are explored in the article.