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With the spread of English as an international language, near native-like accuracy is no longer regarded as a necessary goal for the pronunciation class. This Report discusses the current status and goals of pronunciation instruction in ESL and EFL contexts. Second, it reviews research findings supporting the new focus on intelligibility, and examines instructors’ pedagogical challenges and opinions on how to teach English pronunciation. Third, it evaluates Korean textbooks currently used to teach English pronunciation in Korea and discusses how instructional materials and resources can enhance oral proficiency in EFL contexts. Lastly, it presents a list of pedagogical implications and suggests a best practices approach to English pronunciation instruction in EFL contexts. / text

In this thesis, I have attempted to show a connection between nor:ms for argumentation and requirements of a liberal democracy. The way in which we arrive at our decisions in a democracy is through the argumentative process. This argumentative process can be differentiated into eight separate argumentative dialogues, each having their own respective goals and initial situations. Given democracy's reliance on these argumentative dialogues, I derived three requirements which follow from our basic conception of democracy, i.e. government by the people. These three requirements are participation, trust and understanding. From these three requirements, I argued that it is possible to derive nor:ms of argumentation which in turn support and foster these requirements of democracy. They are fairness, honesty, and clarity, respectively. By bringing together political philosophy and argumentational theory, I have shown that the quality of one's arguments have direct consequences for democracy. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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The proliferation and ubiquity of information technologies (ICTs) have transformed the working environment of organizations, making imperative the engagement of individuals with various technologies for the accomplishment of their work tasks. Although ICTs have offered significant benefits both to individuals and organizations, those advances have come with some costs. Recently, academic literature has shown an increased interest in the dark side or else the negative aspects of technology usage within the workplace, focusing on the stress that individuals experience due to the extended usage of ICTs called technostress. A considerable amount of literature has been published on the concept of technostress revealing its severe consequences on individuals, leading to huge monetary costs for organizations; however, few studies have investigated mechanisms for the alleviation of this phenomenon thus the need for further research is crucial. Addressing this call of research, the present study contributes to the technostress literature by adopting for the first time a mindfulness perspective. The current study aims to examine the role of mindfulness as an organizational mechanism that can mitigate the impact of technostress on individuals as well as alleviate its negative consequences. By following a mixed methods approach, the current study involved two phases; At first, a theoretical framework was developed, based on the transactional-based model of stress, in order to examine the influence of mindfulness on technostress as well as its impact on job related and IT usage related outcomes. By conducting a survey-based approach and exploring a sample of 500 working individuals, the developed model was validated through SEM analysis revealing that mindfulness constitutes a powerful mechanism that can effectively reduce technostress, increase job satisfaction while also enhance user satisfaction while utilizing ICTs for work tasks and improve task performance. During the second phase of the study, the thematic analysis of the collected data, derived from semi-structured interviews, validated the results of the quantitative analysis confirming the role of mindfulness in reducing technostress conditions; while also yielded deeper insights revealing a set of strategies that more mindful individuals deploy during technostress experiences. Overall, the current study enhances existing literature in the IS domain by revealing the valuable role of mindfulness in protecting individuals against the negative impact of stressful events occurring due to ICT usage while also providing substantial practical implications; By introducing mindfulness programs for their employees, corporate and HR managers can significantly improve employees' work life, increase individual productivity and enhance overall wellbeing at work thus ultimately improving the business performance and overall success of the organization.

acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Megan C. Saybe

This paper focuses on Mark Twain's writing style and characterization in his fiction. The settings and characters of his fiction are in particular focus, specifically how Mark Twain draws on personal experiences and memories to make his characters and settings more relatable and realistic. A brief biography of Twain's life is given before the author goes into the specifics of characterization and settings.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that is associated with substantial morbidity, mortality, and health care cost. All patients with diabetes require a high level of clinical care to prevent the development of diabetic complications. The aim of this study was to compare the impact of a pharmaceutical care diabetic clinic within a primary care setting to standard care on clinical, humanistic and process outcomes in Type 2 diabetes patients. A randomised controlled trial was conducted in 9 general practices in Greater Glasgow Health Board. All patients with Type 2 diabetes, aged 18 years or over, taking an oral antidiabetic drug were recruited and stratified by practice, age, and gender, and then randomised into an active or control group. The patients in both groups were invited to a pharmaceutical care diabetic clinic within their general practice for three visits at three-monthly intervals. Active patients received review and allocated intervention by the pharmacist while control patients received review only without intervention by the pharmacist. Allocation remained blind until after the first evaluation. The pharmacist evaluated the appropriateness of the medication for the individual and their overall diabetic care. The pharmacist prepared a list of drug-related problems and a referral where appropriate. GP referrals were actioned in the active group but held back until after the conclusion of the study in the control group. Patient outcome measures include changes in HbA 1 c value, systolic blood pressure, health related quality of life (HRQOL), and drug related problems (DRPs) from baseline to the end of the study for both groups.

During the past quarter century, over 1000 articles have documented changes in student behaviors related to participation in mastery learning programs. Although the results have been generally positive, a debate continues as to the cause for increased student performance: Are results due to changes in how students attend to the information, or simply due to increased study time as a result of remediation? In this study, a videodisc-based program in fractions was used with fifth-grade students. The videodisc-based instruction was chosen to help minimize differences in instructional materials, instructional time, and instructional delivery. A pretest-posttest, control-group design was used to compare academic achievement, locus of control, and goal setting scores of two groups (N=154). Both groups received instruction in fractions via the teacher-directed, videodisc-based Mastering Fractions program. Treatment 1 students (N=80) were knowledgeable that they were participating in a mastery-learning program and would be held accountable for their progress and remediation. Treatment 2 students (N=74) were not aware that their teacher was using mastery learning principles to determine progression and remediation. A control group (N=32) received their normal grade five mathematics program. Comparisons between Treatment 1 and Treatment 2 student scores, after adjustments for pretest results using analysis of covariance, revealed standardized mean difference effect sizes of +0.03 for achievement, +0.32 for locus-of-control, and +0.46 for goal setting mean scores favoring Treatment 1. A discrepancy in implementation of the videodisc program in two classes may have skewed results. When data from these two classes were omitted, the analyses showed adjusted standardized mean difference effect sizes of +0.63 for achievement, +0.75 for locus-of-control, and +0.55 for goal setting mean scores favoring Treatment 1. A two-way analysis of covariance with treatment groups and achievement levels was also conducted. Subsequent standardized mean difference effect sizes using adjusted mean scores were greatest for students from the lowest achievement level (+0.64 for internal locus-of-control and +0.55 for goal setting mean scores). When data from the two discrepant classes were omitted, the adjusted standardized mean difference effect sizes were found to be + 1.24 for internal locus-of-control and + 1.06 for goal setting mean scores favoring students from the lowest achievement level. Implications of these results for mastery learning programs in public schools are discussed.

Workplaces abound in conflict. Individuals within organisations are therefore vulnerable to a wide range of intimidating interactional tactics. These tactics can have an extremely negative impact upon individual workers and upon subsequent organisational performance. Consequentially, the diverse forms of organisational social harassment, and specifically bullying, place a large financial burden upon both organisations and nations. Therefore, the identification of strategies used to prevent and ameliorate workplace bullying and an examination that highlights their comparative success or failure is of great importance for all employers, employees and government. This study focuses upon those strategies used to prevent and ameliorate such workplace bullying and investigates their impact.