This dissertation investigated the occurrence and the effect of incidental noticing in a text-based Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) environment on enhancing second language learning. Learning proficiency was also examined as a possible intervening variable. This was a quasi-experimental study of sixteen nonnative English speakers from a four-year college in Taiwan, collaborating with sixteen native speaking peers in Texas, via chat agents in order to complete two communicative learning tasks over a two-month period of time. Two posttests were customized for each Nonnative English Speaker (NNES) in order to assess his/her second language learning outcomes. In addition, Language- Related Episode’s (LRE’s) characteristics were expected to serve as powerful predictors of NNES’ correct language learning outcomes. In order to unveil the possible impact of the learner’s language proficiency level and its effect on noticing, eight low- intermediate and eight high- intermediate NNESs were included in the study. The findings revealed that CMC context and native and nonnative English speaking task-based peer interactions promoted learner’s noticing and affected the learning performance of NNESs of different levels. The posttest performance showed that incidental noticing facilitated learner’s linguistic knowledge intake and memory retention. Text-based CMC created a visual and collaborative context which allowed NES peers to offer NNESs of different levels personalized feedback. Among LRE’s characteristics, successful uptake, as a powerful predictor, constantly entered all the models generated by logistic regression analysis, which underpinned the importance of quality uptake during the two-way communication for second language learning. In addition, directness (explicit feedback) and response (elicitation) also appeared in regression models of the subsets of LRE data, which indicated the particular type of feedback needed by learners, especially lower proficiency level ones. In addition, NESs’ involvement also facilitated NNESs’ noticing; NES peers applied elicitation techniques to redirect learner’s attention to the problematic utterances and initiated meaning negotiation. The findings reveal that incidental noticing is beneficial to learning, especially when learners are provided with explicit feedback and incorporate the targeted linguistic items into their language production.

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Este trabalho tem por objetivo a reflexão sobre uma alternativa de ensino e aprendizagem de Língua Portuguesa no Fundamental II cujo foco esteja no desenvolvimento efetivo das habilidades de leitura, oralidade e escrita por meio de atividades lúdicas. Para tanto, pautou-se pela experiência bem sucedida com esse tipo de recurso no ensino e aprendizagem de Língua Inglesa, notadamente em cursos de idiomas, cuja orientação metodológica é a Abordagem Comunicativa, e, em especial, o Task-based Language Teaching. O conceito de jogo aqui empregado provém das obras de Huizinga (2004), Wittgenstein (1975) e Brougère (1995, 1999), enquanto a relação entre jogo e Educação foi discutida tendo em vista as considerações de Kishimoto (1992, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2007), Brougère (1995, 1999) e Macedo, Petty e Passos (2005), e entre jogo e língua estrangeira, por Crookall e Oxford (1990) e Bullards (1990). Discutiu-se as abordagens e metodologias mais difundidas no Brasil (FERRO, 1998; RODRIGUES, 2005; BERGO E GOMES, 1985) com a finalidade de se contextualizar a utilização do jogo no Task-based Language Teaching (ELLIS, 2003). A análise do que se compreende como tarefa central do ensino e aprendizagem de Língua Portuguesa privilegiou quatro pontos de vista distintos: o da tradição escolar, dos resultados das avaliações do ensino Fundamental, da perspectiva oficial (PCN) e dos estudos lingüísticos voltados à Educação. Partindo desse referencial teórico, realizou-se em duas etapas uma pesquisa de cunho etnográfico. A Primeira Entrada em Campo consistiu na observação de aulas de Língua Portuguesa e de Língua Inglesa extracurricular em um colégio particular em São Paulo. Objetivou-se verificar como tem sido a prática efetiva nessas disciplinas com relação ao uso de jogos em sala de aula, concluindo-se que 60% do tempo das aulas observadas de Língua Inglesa foram ocupados por atividades lúdicas, enquanto, a rigor, nenhuma atividade desse caráter ocorreu na de Língua Portuguesa. Na Segunda Entrada em Campo realizou-se um minicurso de leitura, oralidade e escrita, ministrado pela pesquisadora a alunos da rede pública de ensino, no qual verificou-se as possibilidades reais de sucesso de uma metodologia de Língua Portuguesa cuja prática considerasse as atividades lúdicas como uma alternativa ao excesso de atividades metalingüísticas revelados por estudos de Neves (2003) e Semeghini- Siqueira (1998, 2006a). O referencial metodológico para a elaboração das aulas do minicurso pautou-se pelos conceitos de Avaliação Diagnóstica e Formativa (SEMEGHINI-SIQUEIRA, 1997, 2002) e Seqüência Didática (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ; NOVERRAZ, 2007) como forma de estruturação para atividades lingüísticas e epilingüísticas (SEMGHINI-SIQUEIRA, 1977, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2006b, 2006c; FRANCHI, 1991; GERALDI, 1985, 1991, 2002; TRAVAGLIA, 1996; POSSENTI, 1996), organizadas em torno do gênero textual entrevista. A inserção de atividades lúdicas que privilegiaram diversas habilidades e diferentes formas de abordagem da língua resultou em um aprendizado mais significativo e eficiente do que aquele observado em aulas de Língua Portuguesa cujas atividades restringem-se apenas às metalingüísticas. / This dissertation aims at reflecting upon an alternative to Portuguese learning and teaching in Middle school1 in which the focus is the development of the proficiency in reading, writing and speaking by means of game-like activities. Therefore, it bears resemblance to the highly successful experience conducted by English courses in line with the Communicative Approach, specially, those of Task-based Language Teaching orientation. The concept of game hereafter presented comes from the works of Huizinga (2004), Wittgenstein (1975) and Brougère (1995, 1999), meanwhile the relationship between games and education relies upon the considerations of Kishimoto (1992, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2007), Brougère (1995, 1999) and Macedo, Petty e Passos (2005); as for games and second language learning and teaching, by Crookall and Oxford (1990) and Bullards (1990). Approaches and methodologies with a greater importance in the Brazilian context (FERRO, 1998; RODRIGUES, 2005; BERGO E GOMES, 1985) were discussed in order to provide background information on the usage of games in Task-based Language Teaching (ELLIS, 2003). Four points of view were privileged to the analysis of the main reasons for learning and teaching Portuguese: the schooling tradition, the results of the evaluation conducted to measure the performance of the students enrolled on the Middle school, the official perspective (PCN) and the linguistic studies related to Education. Having this theoretical scope in mind, two different pieces of ethnographic research were conducted. The first one consisted of the observation of both Portuguese and English (extracurricular) classes at a private school in São Paulo, so that it would be possible to verify whether their delivery has really been taking into consideration the use of games or not. It was reached the conclusion that 60% of the time spent in the English classes observed were on game activities. On the other hand, none activity was observed during the Portuguese class. In the SECOND FIELD STUDY, there was a mini-course of reading, writing and speaking, taught by the researcher, in which students from a public school in São Paulo participated in. Its main objective was to access the real possibilities of success in teaching Portuguese by making use of game activities instead of the metalinguistic ones, pointed as the major resource for Portuguese classes by Neves (2003) and Semeghini-Siqueira (1998, 2006a). The methodological reference for the mini-course is based upon the concepts of \"Avaliação Diagnóstica e Formativa\" (SEMEGHINI-SIQUEIRA, 1997, 2002) and \"Seqüência Didática\" (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ; NOVERRAZ, 2007) as a means of structuring the linguistic and epilinguistic activities (SEMGHINI-SIQUEIRA, 1977, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2006b, 2006c; FRANCHI, 1991; GERALDI, 1985, 1991, 2002; TRAVAGLIA, 1996; POSSENTI, 1996) around the interview genre. As a result, the game activities carried out in the Portuguese classes held by the mini-course proved to be very effective, therefore the learning was enriched by the variety of approaches as well as the range of skills involved in performing the tasks.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo a reflexão sobre uma alternativa de ensino e aprendizagem de Língua Portuguesa no Fundamental II cujo foco esteja no desenvolvimento efetivo das habilidades de leitura, oralidade e escrita por meio de atividades lúdicas. Para tanto, pautou-se pela experiência bem sucedida com esse tipo de recurso no ensino e aprendizagem de Língua Inglesa, notadamente em cursos de idiomas, cuja orientação metodológica é a Abordagem Comunicativa, e, em especial, o Task-based Language Teaching. O conceito de jogo aqui empregado provém das obras de Huizinga (2004), Wittgenstein (1975) e Brougère (1995, 1999), enquanto a relação entre jogo e Educação foi discutida tendo em vista as considerações de Kishimoto (1992, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2007), Brougère (1995, 1999) e Macedo, Petty e Passos (2005), e entre jogo e língua estrangeira, por Crookall e Oxford (1990) e Bullards (1990). Discutiu-se as abordagens e metodologias mais difundidas no Brasil (FERRO, 1998; RODRIGUES, 2005; BERGO E GOMES, 1985) com a finalidade de se contextualizar a utilização do jogo no Task-based Language Teaching (ELLIS, 2003). A análise do que se compreende como tarefa central do ensino e aprendizagem de Língua Portuguesa privilegiou quatro pontos de vista distintos: o da tradição escolar, dos resultados das avaliações do ensino Fundamental, da perspectiva oficial (PCN) e dos estudos lingüísticos voltados à Educação. Partindo desse referencial teórico, realizou-se em duas etapas uma pesquisa de cunho etnográfico. A Primeira Entrada em Campo consistiu na observação de aulas de Língua Portuguesa e de Língua Inglesa extracurricular em um colégio particular em São Paulo. Objetivou-se verificar como tem sido a prática efetiva nessas disciplinas com relação ao uso de jogos em sala de aula, concluindo-se que 60% do tempo das aulas observadas de Língua Inglesa foram ocupados por atividades lúdicas, enquanto, a rigor, nenhuma atividade desse caráter ocorreu na de Língua Portuguesa. Na Segunda Entrada em Campo realizou-se um minicurso de leitura, oralidade e escrita, ministrado pela pesquisadora a alunos da rede pública de ensino, no qual verificou-se as possibilidades reais de sucesso de uma metodologia de Língua Portuguesa cuja prática considerasse as atividades lúdicas como uma alternativa ao excesso de atividades metalingüísticas revelados por estudos de Neves (2003) e Semeghini- Siqueira (1998, 2006a). O referencial metodológico para a elaboração das aulas do minicurso pautou-se pelos conceitos de Avaliação Diagnóstica e Formativa (SEMEGHINI-SIQUEIRA, 1997, 2002) e Seqüência Didática (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ; NOVERRAZ, 2007) como forma de estruturação para atividades lingüísticas e epilingüísticas (SEMGHINI-SIQUEIRA, 1977, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2006b, 2006c; FRANCHI, 1991; GERALDI, 1985, 1991, 2002; TRAVAGLIA, 1996; POSSENTI, 1996), organizadas em torno do gênero textual entrevista. A inserção de atividades lúdicas que privilegiaram diversas habilidades e diferentes formas de abordagem da língua resultou em um aprendizado mais significativo e eficiente do que aquele observado em aulas de Língua Portuguesa cujas atividades restringem-se apenas às metalingüísticas. / This dissertation aims at reflecting upon an alternative to Portuguese learning and teaching in Middle school1 in which the focus is the development of the proficiency in reading, writing and speaking by means of game-like activities. Therefore, it bears resemblance to the highly successful experience conducted by English courses in line with the Communicative Approach, specially, those of Task-based Language Teaching orientation. The concept of game hereafter presented comes from the works of Huizinga (2004), Wittgenstein (1975) and Brougère (1995, 1999), meanwhile the relationship between games and education relies upon the considerations of Kishimoto (1992, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2007), Brougère (1995, 1999) and Macedo, Petty e Passos (2005); as for games and second language learning and teaching, by Crookall and Oxford (1990) and Bullards (1990). Approaches and methodologies with a greater importance in the Brazilian context (FERRO, 1998; RODRIGUES, 2005; BERGO E GOMES, 1985) were discussed in order to provide background information on the usage of games in Task-based Language Teaching (ELLIS, 2003). Four points of view were privileged to the analysis of the main reasons for learning and teaching Portuguese: the schooling tradition, the results of the evaluation conducted to measure the performance of the students enrolled on the Middle school, the official perspective (PCN) and the linguistic studies related to Education. Having this theoretical scope in mind, two different pieces of ethnographic research were conducted. The first one consisted of the observation of both Portuguese and English (extracurricular) classes at a private school in São Paulo, so that it would be possible to verify whether their delivery has really been taking into consideration the use of games or not. It was reached the conclusion that 60% of the time spent in the English classes observed were on game activities. On the other hand, none activity was observed during the Portuguese class. In the SECOND FIELD STUDY, there was a mini-course of reading, writing and speaking, taught by the researcher, in which students from a public school in São Paulo participated in. Its main objective was to access the real possibilities of success in teaching Portuguese by making use of game activities instead of the metalinguistic ones, pointed as the major resource for Portuguese classes by Neves (2003) and Semeghini-Siqueira (1998, 2006a). The methodological reference for the mini-course is based upon the concepts of \"Avaliação Diagnóstica e Formativa\" (SEMEGHINI-SIQUEIRA, 1997, 2002) and \"Seqüência Didática\" (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ; NOVERRAZ, 2007) as a means of structuring the linguistic and epilinguistic activities (SEMGHINI-SIQUEIRA, 1977, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2006b, 2006c; FRANCHI, 1991; GERALDI, 1985, 1991, 2002; TRAVAGLIA, 1996; POSSENTI, 1996) around the interview genre. As a result, the game activities carried out in the Portuguese classes held by the mini-course proved to be very effective, therefore the learning was enriched by the variety of approaches as well as the range of skills involved in performing the tasks.

The components of high-performance systems continue to become more complex on the road to exascale. This complexity is exposed at the level of: multi/many-core CPUs, accelerators (GPUs), interconnects (horizontal communication), and memory hierarchies (vertical communication). A crucial task is designing an algorithm and a programming model that scale to the same order of the HPC system size at multiple levels. This trend in HPC architecture more critically affects memory-intensive appli- cations than compute-bound applications. Accomplishing this task involves adopting less synchronous forms of the mathematical algorithm, reducing synchronization in the computational implementation, introducing more SIMT-style concurrency at the finest level of system hierarchy, and increasing arithmetic intensity as the bottleneck shifts from number of floating-point operations to number of memory accesses. This dissertation addresses these challenges in scientific simulation focusing in the dominant kernels of a memory-bound application: sparse solvers in implicit model- ing, and I/O in explicit reverse time migration in seismic imaging. We introduce asynchronous task-based parallelism into iterative algebraic preconditioners. We also introduce a task-based framework that hides the latency of I/O with computation. This dissertation targets two main applications in the oil and gas industry: reservoir simulation and seismic imaging simulation. It presents results on multi- and many- core systems and GPUs on four Top500 supercomputers: Summit, TSUBAME 3.0, Shaheen II, and Makman-2. We introduce an asynchronous implementation of four major memory-bound kernels: Algebraic multigrid (MPI+OmpSs), tridiagonal solve (MPI+OpenMP), Additive Schwarz Preconditioned Inexact Newton (MPI+MPI), and Reverse Time Migration (StarPU/StarPU+MPI and CUDA).

There has been a strong advocacy of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in China since the 1980s. One underlying assumption behind this approach is that acquisition is a process which depends on conversational interaction (Wagner-Gough & Hatch, 1975). A specific kind of interaction, meaning negotiation, which “includes routines or exchanges that involve indications of non-understandings and subsequent negotiations of meaning” (Gass & Varonis, 1991, p. 127) has long been considered to be a key factor in L2 development research. From the interactionist perspective, the facilitative role of meaning negotiation in L2 learning is that it provides comprehensible input, and elicits corrective feedback, helps learners to produce comprehensible output, and has the potential to draw learners’ attention to non-target-like aspects of language output. However, recognising the growing role of synchronous computer-medicated communication (SCMC) in language learning, how EFL learners negotiate meaning and whether the claim of the interactionist approach still holds true in this new medium needs further investigation. Moreover, considering the complexity of tasks used in eliciting meaning negotiation and the SCMC involved in negotiating meaning, the exclusively cognitive approach applied by previous studies seems insufficient to explain the meaning negotiation elaborated. For instance, considering the Chinese culture of learning, some Chinese students may be reluctant to produce negotiated interaction. Also, little research has been carried out to investigate the effect of social factors, such as the context and relationship between interlocutors, in generating meaning negotiation. Furthermore, there is little conclusive evidence in previous research regarding the effects of tasks on the quality and quantity of meaning negotiation. This case study investigated 48 EFL students studying mechanical engineering in a Chinese university. Using the variationist perspective on the interaction approach, this study aimed to investigate the features of learners’ negotiated interaction during task-based SCMC, and their similarities and differences with face-to-face negotiated interaction, based on the Varonis and Gass model. Moreover, it also investigates the relationship between task (i.e., task type and task content) and meaning negotiation (i.e., quality and quantity), and the perceived benefits and difficulties of the use of paired task-based SCMC interaction. Also, as previous studies have neglected the individual differences and social factors, the last aim was to investigate how the social and cognitive factors were inextricably intertwined by studying the participants’ perceptions and their actual performances. The main results of the study indicate a low ratio of negotiated turns in paired task-based SCMC interaction due both to linguistic and social factors. Moreover, task did have an influence on the meaning negotiation generated. However, the five-task typology (Pica et al., 1993) applied by most previous studies investigating meaning negotiation cannot fully explain the influence of task on meaning negotiation in peer-peer SCMC context. Apart from the two recurrent features in task definitions, “interactional activity” and “communication goal”, “task complexity” and “task difficulty” (Robinson, 2003) are also influential factors. Overall, this study argues that task, SCMC, the relationship between interlocutors and the learners themselves are all factors which can influence learners’ generation of meaning negotiation. Both personal information and learning contexts have the potential to shape not only the quantity and quality of meaning negotiation but also the attention to the interaction and further influence the production of learners’ language.

Although modeling and simulation are fertile areas for research and development within medicine, education, and human factors, there is a growing need for fully integrated organ systems as part of any digital human model (DHM). This need is particularly high in task-based survivability assessment. However, the current static geometry used in DHM is insufficient for evaluating conditions during simulated task performance. This insufficiency is due to the fact that internal viscera are inherently non-rigid objects. Therefore, undesirable, and unrealistic behaviors occur when using static models to represent internal viscera as the DHM moves through a variety of postures. The capacity for DHMs to take on a variety of postures and positions contributes to their overall usefulness in modeling and simulation. By using static models to represent internal viscera, errors in model behavior must be tolerated, or the DHM must be limited to a posture that matches the models’ configurations. With the either option being undesirable there is a need to represent internal viscera using dynamic models. A dynamic model will allow for the geometry used in representing the internal viscera to deform as the DHM. Thus this work proposes a computational platform for controlling the motion and deformation of internal viscera models within a DHM. This platform consists of two components. The first component is a new method for maintaining a relative position within a dynamic character’s mesh called skin-based parenting. The second component is a system which takes a free-from deformation technique used in artistic modeling and eliminates the manual input that is usually required. This platform produces representations of internal viscera which conform to the character’s posture in real-time at an interactive rate. Thus enabling the assessment of how particular environmental influences relate to the position and orientation of internal viscera models within a DHM in a variety of postures.

Students use a myriad of disparate technologies and information sources to conduct a variety of activities during the research-paper writing process. While this process is considered a complex task, there is no “information appliance” that provides support. Using established frameworks of the research-paper writing process, an online survey was conducted to describe how activities, sources, and technologies used by students during the process are related to the various phases of that process. Connections were made between activities and technologies to show how an information appliance may support the process from onset to completion. Results show that the activities conducted during the process are iterative. The design application is that some technologies, such as those that support searching, need not be viewable at all times, but must always be available. These connections provide further insight into the student research-paper writing process and provide an example of how design may support task.

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / Task based language instruction has generated some debate among researchers. Some argue in favour of task based language instruction by claiming that tasks focus learners' attention on meaning and thus facilitate second language acquisition (Prahbu, 1987; Pica and Doughty, 1986; Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun,1993). Others argue against task based language instruction and call into question the concept of comprehensible input, the idea upon which the whole task based approach is based (Sheen, 1994).

Task-based language teaching has received increasing attention in second language acquisition research over the past decade (Révész, 2007). However, the target form comprises conveyance of meaning in task-based classroom to some degree. In the area of Chinese acquisition as a second language the role of recasts and explicit feedback has not been the subject of much investigation, as two types of technique to compensate learners’ attention on form. Few empirical studies have explored their short-term and long-term effects on Chinese language acquisition in task-based classroom. To test the conclusions of some research about corrective feedback in the area of SLA, the present study examined the effects of these two techniques respectively. The study employed an immediate-test and posttest design. The participants were 53 adult, beginning level Chinese language learners who study Chinese as a second language, naturally assigned to one of the two comparison groups and a control group. The comparison groups differed as to whether they received recasts or explicit feedback while completing communicative tasks. The control group also practiced the tasks; however, they received neither recasts nor explicit feedback from their instructors in the process and they participated in the testing sessions. Results analysis of collected data yielded three main findings. First, learners receiving explicit feedback immediately outperformed those who received recasts for certain structures. Second, learners receiving explicit feedback sometimes yielded some long-term advantages over those who did not receive any feedback, followed by the recast group even after a period of time. Third, the performance of the participants varied according to the complexity of the target forms. The results imply that explicit feedback and recasts can facilitate the production of certain target language forms in beginning Chinese communicative class. The effects of explicit feedback and recasts depend on the chosen forms. It is congruent with Long’s (1998) and Ellis’s (2007) speculation that the roles of various feedbacks differ according to different linguistic features. It also provides further evidence for Leeman’s (2000) conclusion that recasts may be differentially effective when the learnabililty of the target linguistic feature vary. Finally, the findings lend some support to the insight derived from Long that focus-on-form should be integrated into task-based language teaching (Long, 1996, 2000; Long & Robinson, 1998).