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This study tried to investigate the effectiveness of authentic and pedagogical films with English and Persian subtitles in learning vocabulary. Moreover, the role of these two types of subtitles and the films with no subtitles were investigated. To conduct the study, 30 Iranian EFL students were selected based on the results of an Oxford Placement Test and were assigned in two experimental groups as authentic and pedagogical groups. The students were given twelve sessions as treatment. Then, the researcher administered a post-test at the end of the treatment period. The post-test was a multiple choice test with 25 items. To answer the research questions statistical analysis was performed. The results of t-test showed that the students in authentic group had a better performance than the students in the pedagogical group in vocabulary learning. Regarding the findings of One-way ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey test, revealed that the students who received films with English subtitles had a better performance in comparison to groups of students who watched films with Farsi subtitles or those watched films with no subtitles.

Input enhancement's role to promote learners' awareness in L2 contexts has caused a tremendous amount of research. Conspicuously, by regarding all aspects of input enhancement, the study aimed to find out how differently many kinds of input enhancement factors such as bolding, underlining, and capitalizing impact on L2 learners' vocabulary acquiring. Furthermore, the study was conducted through a quasi-experimental design with a proficiency test to find how homogeneous the groups are. Four classes were selected as the experimental groups (n = 80), and each class was conducted by one of the input enhancement main categories compared with the control group. Subjects attended in eight sessions to make them familiar with advantages of input enhancement in relation to vocabulary learning. Each group received different strategies but control group received no treatment and then, the researcher taught and employed those inputs in texts along with target words. Learners' progress was measured during the eight sessions of employing those inputs in responding to vocabulary questions. One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, One-way ANOVAs series along with LSD and post hoc comparisons showed that three inputs were effective in responding to target vocabulary words and they compared and contrasted with control group but the bolding group did better than the other groups. Finally, bolding target words were more effective in fostering L2 learners' vocabulary knowledge learning. These outcomes propose that using input enhancement to answer target words are the most useful factors, especially bolding as a significant input in this study outperformed the other ones in developing learners' awareness to answer vocabulary tests. It can also be concluded that capitalizing is the least effective input compared to underlining and bolding in terms of their efficacy.

The purpose of this study is to examine the uses of print features in preschool children's books in the US and Turkey, in order to helping adults to understand print features and supporting children's print awareness. In this context, two hundred children's books was randomly selected from the US and Turkey. Document analysis was used for examining the children's books. For the analysis of how to use print features, this study used coding systems adapted from McCarier, Pinnel, and Fountas (2000) and Zucker, Ward, and Justice (2009). After identifying children's book literature as concept books, theme collections, rhythm's books of language, and story books, we evaluated print features of books according to six features: labeling/environmental print, visible speech, visible sound, letters in isolation, font changes, and bold or unique fonts in the coding system. Findings of this study showed that examining children's books in the US contains more print features than examining children's books in Turkey.

This research aimed at investigating the method of using kinetic typography and interactive approach to conduct a design experiment for children to learn vocabularies. Typography is the unique art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. By adding animated movement to characters, kinetic typography expresses language meanings in a better and dynamic way. Kinetic typography may also help children to clearly grasp the relationship of difficult words by means of expressing, understanding and experiencing the cognition process. When children interact through the dictionary with animated typeface and movement, it brings on a more functional and profound impression on them for gaining knowledge. The present study takes children's development and learning theories into consideration by analyzing how they acquire information through interactive process to enhance their involvements. This study shows through the implementation of motion graphics, kinetic typography and information design, that a more diversified learning experience can stimulate and strengthen the sensitivity of children in their perception and learnability. It can also enhance children's understanding on the meaning of vocabularies, through kinetic expressions.

School librarians regularly face difficult intellectual freedom questions. Is it a good idea to put grade- or reading-level labels on the outside of books or use labels to determine what students should read? Do children have First Amendment rights? The ALA "Intellectual Freedom Manual" provides answers and guidance. The "Intellectual Freedom Manual" has been an essential resource for decades. Over time, it grew considerably in size and scope, containing official ALA policy statements on intellectual freedom and essays about the history of those statements. Based on feedback from librarians, the ninth edition has been revised and reorganized. This article describes what is included in the new edition, how it is arranged, and how school librarians can put it to use.

Computer animation in the past decade has become one of the most noticeable features of technology-based learning environments. By its definition, it refers to simulated motion pictures showing movement of drawn objects, and is often defined as the art in movement. Its educational application known as educational computer animation is considered to be one of the most elegant ways for preparing materials for teaching, and its importance in assisting learners to process, understand and remember information efficiently has vastly grown since the advent of powerful graphics-oriented computers era. Based on theories and facts of psychology, colour science, computer animation, geometric modelling and technical aesthetics, this study intends to establish an inter-disciplinary area of research towards a greater educational effectiveness. With today's high educational demands as well as the lack of time provided for certain courses, classical educational methods have shown deficiencies in keeping up with the drastic changes observed in the digital era. Generally speaking, without taking into account various significant factors as, for instance, gender, age, level of interest and memory level, educational animations may turn out to be insufficient for learners or fail to meet their needs. Though, we have noticed that the applications of animation for education have been given only inadequate attention, and students' personality types of temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, etc.) have never been taken into account. We suggest there is an interesting relationship here, and propose essential factors in creating educational animations based on students' personality types. Particularly, we study how information in computer animation may be presented in a more preferable way based on font types and their families, colours and colour schemes, emphasizing texts, shapes of characters designed by planar quadratic Bernstein-Bézier curves. The study has found out that both choleric-melancholic and phlegmatic-sanguine gained the lowest and the highest percentages in selection of different colour groups as cool, warm, and achromatic. We have experimentally confirmed the theory of Nabiyev & Ziatdinov (2014) which reports that planar quadratic Bernstein-Bézier curves with monotonic curvature function may be not aesthetic. Finally, based on the survey results, we have clarified how school students understand the fundamental principles of computer animation. We look forward that this study is likely to have wide benefits in the field of education. Developing educational materials with the aid of obtained empirical results, while considering the personality types of students' temperament, seems to be a promising avenue to improve, enrich and deepen the learning process in order to achieve its maximum effectiveness.

This research is an exploratory study that investigates students' perceptions pertinent to textbook layout and organization and their evaluation of the textbook ease of learning. The objective is to find out whether the layout dynamics of school textbooks make any difference in students' interest in studying or subject understanding. 73 students from various private schools of Pakistan's cosmopolitan city Karachi responded to a quantitative survey that gauged their perceptions regarding textbook components such as paper, print, color, and textbook pedagogical features. Findings indicate that students rank print and color above paper quality, and that there is no particular relationship between a book layout and the actual use of textbooks.

In this methodological review, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of a random sample of 107 education-related doctoral dissertations published in Proquest Dissertations and Theses database in 2011. Seven raters coded each article in terms of page lengths (overall and within each chapter), research method (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods), author gender, and university characteristics (online or traditional). We found that the median education dissertation length was 161 pages long, but those page lengths differed between research methods. The median page lengths of qualitative, mixed method, and quantitative dissertations were 210, 187, and 147 respectively. The median page length of education dissertations from online universities was 44 pages shorter than education dissertations from their traditional counterparts. Contrary to previous research, we found no statistically significant relationship between gender and methods choice.

Introduction: Our aim is to compare the advantages and problems of e-book acquisition identified in research literature to those experienced by two Swedish university libraries. Method: A literature review was used to identify the main issues related to acquisition of e-books by academic libraries. The data for comparison were collected through case studies in two Swedish universities. Document analysis, interviews and personal experience were used for data collection. Results: The main drivers of e-book acquisition by Swedish academic libraries are the perceived needs of the users. E-books are regarded as potentially useful for solving some of the problems of library service. A number of challenges and problems identified by the participants in the case studies coincide with those that were derived from the literature review. Conclusions: The problems of e-book acquisition in academic libraries seem to be common to the economically strong Western countries. University librarians see certain advantages of e-books for their users and libraries. Publishers and academic librarians expect that e-books would not lose the advantages that printed books offered to them. Hence, publishers restrict the usage of e-books to ensure revenues as if from selling individual copies. Librarians try to regain the same level of control over e-book collections as for printed materials.

At its base, advertising is the process of using visual images and words to attract and convince consumers that a certain product has certain attributes. The same effect exists in electronic communication, strongly so in online courses where most if not all interaction between instructor and student is in writing. Arguably, if consumers make certain assumptions about a product based on the typeface used on a package, then online students are poised to do the same when they read emails from an online instructor. This pilot study looked at the specific medium of e-mail and how an email's recipient (student) might transfer his or her perceptions of attributes of three typefaces to attributes of the sender (instructor) of the email. One was a commonly used typeface, and the other two were selected for their dramatic differences from the common typeface. The findings revealed that the participants' opinions of the sender were highly influenced by the typeface used. In the arena of online education, attention should be given to typeface selection in instructors' emails to students.

With the advent of technology, the implication of authentic multimedia-based teaching materials are using widely in language classrooms. Technology can be in service of teaching different skills such as listening, reading, speaking and writing. Among these skills listening comprehension is a skill in which the learners have problems to master. Regarding this issue, utilizing captions for the education purposes has been a good motivation for conducting some research on the effects of captions of listening skills. However, it seems that there is a gap in the literature whether to use captioned movies in the classroom and whether they are effective in improving listening comprehension. Many studies have been conducted on this issue. However, their findings are conclusive. While some studies refer to the effectiveness of using captions, others revel that they are not so effective for improving the learner's language skills. Hence, the present study is a review of the effects of captioned movies on the improvement of listening skill. In this case, the findings of this study can clarify the role of using captioned movies in improving the listening skill.

This study was designed to present and discuss some results produced by a research involving the use of English subtitles of some news videos from the webiste Reuters.com (http://www.reuters.com) with pedagogical reasons in a Brazilian context (Academic English for Journalism). We have developed the research during two semesters at UNESP (Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho). The professor in charge of the study has chosen the students of Journalism as the audience to whom the videos were presented. The assumptions of many theorists and experts in Audiovisual Translation were adopted as our Theoretical Sources. The first step of the study was the assessment of the syllabus of each course. This was very helpful as a guidance in order to choose the most relevant and interesting videos for students. After the evaluation of academic and professional interests, we chose some videos to insert appropriate subtitles, according to some strategies suggested by Panayota Georgakopoulou and Henrik Gottlieb. Finally we presented the videos during the English classes. At the first time, they were presented without subtitles just to notice the comprehension level of the students. After that, the videos were presented with English subtitles. As we first assumed, the students haven't had the whole comprehension of specific details during the first presentation, they have just used their previous knowledge and the visual aids to help them in a superficial understanding of the news. As the subtitles appear, the process of communication was finally accomplished.

Texts are a group of letters which are printed or displayed in a particular style and size. In the course of the fast speed of technological development everywhere and expanding use of computer based instruction such as online courses, students spend more time on a computer screen than printed media. Texts have been the main element to convey messages. It has also been a significant component for learning. The main goal of this research is to measure the effects of font type and spacing of on screen text and its readability in improving and boosting the learner's ability to read easily, recall information, and enhance their reading speed and comprehension from on screen text with different topics. The readability of text on screens is necessary to ensure effective engagement in order to enhance the level of students' readability. For this purpose two font types were selected, Times New Roman (serif) and Verdana (san serif) for the respondents. Verdana was designed only for computer screens display. Readability test on a computer screen was conducted on 30 postgraduate students. Overall, the results showed that there was a significant difference between the readability of serif and san serif font type of on-screen display. The research findings suggest Verdana font type as a better choice in displaying long text for on-screen display.

This theoretical paper adopts the point of view of the audience of subtitled films and outlines a theory of subtitles as communicative agents within the participation structures of film reception. Based on examples from three Swiss fiction films -- "Heidi" (2015), "Heimatland" (2015) and "Der Goalie bin ig" (2014) -- the following communicative effects are found and illustrated: uniformity, authorisation, foregrounding, aestheticisation, foreignisation. These effects are conceptualised in terms of Constitutive Communication theory and textual agency (Cooren. 2004. Textual agency: How texts do things in organizational settings. "Organization" 11(3). 373-393. doi:10.1177/1350508404041998), which describe that by communicating with audiences, subtitles animate into being other participants in film discourse and contribute to what viewers take away in terms of characters, stories, the cultural aspects they represent and the source culture(s) from which the text is perceived to communicate.

In a market dominated by Hollywood, it is easy to overlook that the number of films (and televised productions) which are not in English is actually by far greater than those in English. However, although some non-English language film industries are vast, only a comparatively small number of productions are screened outside of their country of origin. Therefore, before being translated and brought to screens for us to watch, already a filter applies, as the films are chosen by curators of film festivals or the industry. For that reason, films that are perhaps less representative but more interesting, or by a well-known director may be chosen over others that may have been more successful in their country of origin, but are made by a less-well know director or perceived to be less interesting for 'foreign audiences'. The choice of what we watch is thus never entirely ours. Using Japan, Germany and the UK as example, I will offer some thoughts on what impact such a filter might have on the consumption, and therefore the perception, of a film outside of its country of origin and what challenges this poses for audiences and researchers.

This article focuses on linguistic and cultural representation in AVT as a medium of intercultural literacy. It has two objectives: it puts to the test increasingly accepted assumptions about AVT modalities' distinctive meaning potential and expressive capacity, with a case study of communicative practices in their representation, via AVT, in subtitles across Romance and Germanic languages. The second objective is to make a start on a neglected question to date, by considering, concurrently, the respective potential for representation of different types of languages, Indo-European in the first instance, in different pair configurations. The study applies to (Romance) French, Italian, Spanish and (Germanic) English and German and uses a cross-cultural pragmatics framework to explore representation, per se and comparatively across the languages represented in the main data, Lonnergan's 2016 feature film "Manchester by the Sea." Data is approached qualitatively from a target text end in the first instance and primarily, in a subset of scenes from across the film. Quantitative analysis is used complementarily for diagnostic purposes or as a complementary source of evidence, with initial focus on types of features identified in earlier studies as a locus of stylised representation in subtitling with evidence of distinctive pragmatic indexing (e.g. pronominal address, greetings, thanking). The study is a pilot study and is exploratory at this stage, but part of a broader endeavour to inform debates about, and build up the picture of, AVT as cross-cultural mediation and, ultimately, promote our understanding of films in translation's societal impact.

Captions provide a useful aid to language learners for comprehending videos and learning new vocabulary, aligning with theories of multimedia learning. Multimedia learning predicts that a learner's working memory (WM) influences the usefulness of captions. In this study, we present two eye-tracking experiments investigating the role of WM in captioned video viewing behavior and comprehension. In Experiment 1, Spanish-as-a-foreign-language learners differed in caption use according to their level of comprehension and to a lesser extent, their WM capacities. WM did not impact comprehension. In Experiment 2, English-as-a-second-language learners differed in comprehension according to their WM capacities. Those with high comprehension and high WM used captions less on a second viewing. These findings highlight the effects of potential individual differences and have implications for the integration of multimedia with captions in instructed language learning. We discuss how captions may help neutralize some of working memory's limiting effects on learning.

Within instructed second language research, there is growing interest in research focusing on primary school vocabulary learning. Research has emphasized classroom-based learning of vocabulary knowledge, with growing focus on the potential for using captioned videos and increased word encounters. The present study investigated the effects of various captioning conditions (i.e. full captioning, keyword captioning, and no captions), the number of word encounters (one and three), and the combinations of these two variables on incidental learning of new words while viewing a video. Six possible conditions were explored. A total of 257 primary school students learning English as a second language (ESL) were divided into six groups and randomly assigned to a condition in which 15 target lexical items were included. A post-test, measuring the recognition of word form/meaning and recall of word meaning, was administered immediately after participants viewed the video. The post-test was not disclosed to the learners in advance. The group viewing the full captioning video scored significantly higher than the keyword captioning group and the no-captioning group. Repeated encounters with the targeted lexical items led to more successful learning. The combination of full captioning and three encounters was most effective for incidental learning of lexical items. This quasi-experimental study contributes to the literature by providing evidence which suggests that captioned videos coordinate two domains (i.e. auditory and visual components) and help ESL learners to obtain greater depth of word form processing, identify meaning by unpacking language chunks, and reinforce the form-meaning link.

This paper analyses the extent to which textbook images are designed using the Instructional Criteria for Image Analysis (ICIA) model in textbooks. The ICIA proposed that learning through images involves interaction between the learner, the image, and the activities with images proposed to the student. Images from the main text and activity section of eleven primary and secondary school textbooks on the human body were analysed regarding the extent to which they fit the proposed criteria. Images in the main text were analysed according to size and type, presence of visual elements (graphical elements, colour, enlarged details), verbal elements (caption, labels) and reference to the image within the text, while images in the activity sections were analysed according to learning involved (task type, procedure, processing level). Results show unequal presence of these criteria in both primary and secondary school textbooks. There are some differences between primary and secondary levels (predominant image type, degree of image contextualisation and processing level required). Images should not be considered self-evident. Images should be designed based less on aesthetic and decorative criteria and more on instructional criteria such as ICIA proposed in order to support image-based learning processes and increase the potential value of images as learning tools.

The present study was aimed at investigating whether and how image characteristics influence written naming performance in adults. In three different sessions, participants had to quickly write down the names of pictured objects on a graphic tablet. Across sessions, the picture format was different, but the to-be-named objects were the same: There were black-and-white pictures (Snodgrass & Vanderwart's [SV] 1980 drawings), grayscale and colored pictures of the SV drawings as provided by Rossion and Pourtois (2004). Linear-mixed models (LMM) were used to analyze written latencies. The main findings were the following: (1) Colorized pictures yielded shorter written naming latencies than line drawings with the grayscale pictures being situated between the two; (2) Both within- and between-picture format LMM revealed reliable effects of name agreement, objective word frequency, frequency trajectory (the effect was marginal in the grayscale condition), and imageability on written latencies. The influence of image agreement was, however, less stable (reliable only in the colorized condition in the within-picture format LMM analysis; significant with both line drawings and their colorized version only in the between-picture format LMM analysis); (3) None of the interactions with picture format reached significance except the interaction of Image agreement with Picture format. In line with Bonin, Roux, Barry, & Canell (2012b), the findings support a limited-cascading account of written word production.

We examined whether variations in contextual diversity, spacing, and retrieval practice influenced how well adults learned new words from reading experience. Eye movements were recorded as adults read novel words embedded in sentences. In the learning phase, unfamiliar words were presented either in the same sentence repeated four times (same context) or in four different sentences (diverse context). Spacing was manipulated by presenting the sentences under distributed or non-distributed practice. After learning, half of the participants were asked to retrieve the new words, and half had an extra exposure to the new words. Although words experienced in diverse contexts were acquired more slowly during learning, they enjoyed a greater benefit of learning at immediate posttest. Distributed practice also slowed learning, but no benefit was observed at posttest. Although participants who had an extra exposure showed the greatest learning benefit overall, learning also benefited from retrieval opportunity, when words were experienced in diverse contexts. These findings demonstrate that variation in the content and structure of the learning environment impacts on word learning via reading.

Words printed in a larger 48-point font are judged to be more memorable than words printed in a smaller 18-point font, although font size does not affect actual memory. To clarify the basis of this font size effect on metamemory and memory, 4 experiments investigated how presenting words in 48 (Experiment 1) or 4 (Experiments 2 to 4) font sizes between 6 point and 500 point affected judgments of learning (JOLs) and recall performance. Response times in lexical decision tasks were used to measure perceptual fluency. In all experiments, perceptual fluency was lower for words presented in very small and very large font sizes than for words presented in intermediate font sizes. In contrast, JOLs increased monotonically with font size, even beyond the point where a large font impaired perceptual fluency. Assessments of people's metacognitive beliefs about font size revealed that the monotonic increase in JOLs was not due to beliefs masking perceptual fluency effects (Experiment 3). Also, JOLs still increased across the whole range of font sizes when perceptual fluency was made salient at study (Experiment 4). In all experiments but Experiment 4, recall performance increased with increasing font size, although to a lesser extent than JOLs. Overall, the current study supports the idea that metacognitive beliefs underlie font size effects in metamemory. As important, it reveals that people's font size beliefs have some accuracy.

Educational rights and other rights enumerated in federal law support deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) viewers' access to captions in visual electronic media, yet uncaptioned and inadequately captioned media still exist. To determine what is satisfactory in captioned media and what could be improved to ensure access, data were gathered from focus group discussions with 20 DHH students who shared their perspectives on captions. The focus group analysis indicates that major topics of concern for DHH viewers include advocacy for captions and caption formatting preferences; the need for direct access to real-time videos, online videos, and other media; how captions influence and benefit DHH and hearing viewers; and captions' importance in public, educational, and other social/cultural spaces. The author concludes that DHH viewers' perspectives can help educators and advocates strengthen access to captions in education and society.

Textbooks remain as major learning aids in all levels of education worldwide. Thus, textbooks must constantly be subjected to critical analysis in order to establish their curricular usefulness. This paper analyzed four commercial science textbooks designed for third grade Filipino learners. The four textbooks were analyzed according to readability and comprehensibility, content, and mechanical features. Readability was evaluated using popular readability formulas, while comprehensibility was determined using the Sonmez's formula and the cloze test methods. The content features were the textbooks' alignment with national science standards, conceptual errors, and level of gender bias. Finally, the mechanical features were focused on printing and lay-out, and handiness of the textbooks. Readability analysis revealed that the textbooks were written three to four grade levels higher, and two to 3 years older than their intended users. The dominant reading ease of the four textbooks ranged from fairly easy to easy, which means that the texts are suitable to sixth and seventh graders. The texts were highly to perfectly aligned with the country's national science standards. Three textbooks are generally gender fair while one has a low-level male bias. The average error/conceptual problem density is at one error in every six to eight pages. Misidentifications are the most common conceptual problems in the textbooks. Finally, the textbooks are noted very good in printing, layout, paper quality, binding, and handiness.

Students with intellectual disability often have difficulty reading commonly used words. Researchers have found altering printed text from fluent, easy-to-read font, to disfluent, difficult-to-read font can enhance comprehension and recall. An adapted alternating treatments design was used to evaluate and compare sight-word acquisition and maintenance in three postsecondary students with intellectual disability when flashcards were presented in fluent (i.e., 14-point Arial) and disfluent (i.e., 14-point Juice ITC reduced to 70% transparency) fonts. Results showed all three students acquired and maintained both fluent and disfluent words, with two of the three students learning more fluent words. These findings suggest altering fonts to make them difficult to read can hinder, rather than enhance, word learning in students with intellectual disability. Directions for future research are provided with a focus on the need for aptitude-treatment interaction studies.

I am a lecturer with professional marketing experience, and this study was motivated by my dismay at university about what I have perceived as oversights in colleagues' typical use of mass email (emailing a single message to a large group of subscribers) for content delivery, in comparison to the communication strategies of major industries (for example, retail and public administration). I examine non-academic research about mass email best-practise, as implemented in industry communications; then I perform a systematic review of academic research on mass email for content delivery. My review of 19 studies confirms academics are behind the industry when it comes to mass email evaluation and optimisation strategies. Finally, I outline tactics necessary for more effective mass emails at university, the most salient being systematically analysing a range of email metrics, and testing and optimising emails. Also, included in this study is my identification of current obstacles to more effective mass email at university, and these include the technological limitations of learning management systems (LMS), and the limited expertise of teaching staff.

This study investigated the effects of captioned videos on ESL primary school students' comprehension of video content. A total of 182 primary school students watched two short English story videos in one of three conditions: fully captioned videos (N = 62), keyword captioned videos (N = 63), and uncaptioned videos (N = 57). Each group included learners with higher and lower levels of English proficiency. Two videos were selected, and the second video was watched twice. After each video, all participants took a comprehension test, including global comprehension and detailed questions. Findings revealed that fully captioned group achieved the best results on the global comprehension questions. Significant differences between the fully captioned and keyword captioned videos on the detailed comprehension questions were not detected. Learners with a higher level of English proficiency and those who watched the video for a second time achieved better comprehension scores. These findings suggest that full captioning videos, rather than keyword captioning videos, should be considered when using video-based comprehension activities for ESL primary school learners. However, learners' English level and the frequency of video viewing should also be considered.

Background: Concerns about health inequalities experienced by people with intellectual disability (ID) have led to many health information materials being created in an "Easy Read" format. This study aimed to understand the practices involved in making information accessible. Methods: Individual, pair and group interviews were conducted involving people with and without ID based in non-profit organisations, academic, and health service settings. Thematic analysis addressed the creation of Easy Read health resources, the format and content of the texts, and how producers imagine the texts are received by potential audiences. Results: Little consensus emerged of the best way to produce Easy Read health information. Lacking systematic feedback, participants described imagined audiences and contexts for their reception. Conclusions: Production of Easy Read resources has become widespread despite current limited evidence of impact. Interactions between social groups involved in the production process and the wider policy and legislative context contribute to this situation.

This article combines theory on comics, narrative, and discursive psychology and analyses how the gutter is co-constructed for storytelling in classroom interaction. Closure of the gutter has previously been treated as a cognitive aspect. Here, interactional video data are analysed, with participants organizing ten separate comic panels. The analysis focuses on participants' talk about the gutter, and how this constructs social actions. The results show how participants co-construct the gutter as meaningful space, hereby organizing time, actions, and events in narratives. The paper evinces that gutters are co-constructed as too narrow or too broad, relating chronologically and logically to surrounding panels. This contributes to sociocultural perspectives on literacy and use of comics for engaging with narratives in classroom practice.

While there is increasing evidence that learners pick up new words while viewing video with captions (i.e. L2 subtitles), little is known about the role of instructional interventions prior to viewing. This study uses eye-movement registration to investigate the effect of pre-learning vocabulary before watching a captioned video. Thirty intermediate L2 learners of French watched a captioned video that contained ten pseudo-words in a within-subject design; five pseudo-words were pre-learned, the other half only appeared in the video. We investigated the effect of pre-learning on participants' attention allocation to the pseudo-words in the captions, the captions that contained a pseudo-word and the corresponding images as well as in two vocabulary post-tests (i.e. a form and meaning recognition test). Four types of eye-metrics were used to analyse learners' attention allocation: first and total fixation duration, fixation count, and regression count. Findings indicated that pre-learning does not affect participants' fixations and time spent on the pseudo-words in the captions, the captions, and the images. However, pre-learned pseudo-words were skipped more often than unknown pseudo-words in the captions. The effect of pre-learning was more pronounced on the vocabulary post-tests. Overall, participants spent more time on test items for unknown pseudo-words.

Video viewing can be a valuable resource to expose students to large quantities of input so they can improve their vocabulary and content comprehension. Most studies so far have used short clips and have not explored in much detail the effects of individual differences (IDs) such as aptitude, listening skills and vocabulary size. This paper aims to address this gap by exposing 57 Grade-10 EFL learners and 60 university students to captioned video. On a weekly basis over an academic term, all learners were pre-taught a set of target words (TWs); half of them (the experimental group) were additionally shown captioned episodes from a TV series containing the TWs. All learners were pre- and post-tested on the TW forms and meanings. Results revealed significant differences between experimental and control groups in the learning of TWs in the high school population, but not among university participants. A main effect for proficiency was observed on the learning scores for both TW forms and meanings. However, language aptitude was only a significant factor for TW meanings. Results are discussed regarding how video viewing and these IDs mediate vocabulary learning.

This study aims at exploring the potential of extensive TV viewing for L2 vocabulary learning, and the effects associated with the language of the on-screen text (L1 or L2), type of instruction (pre-teaching target items or not) and learners' proficiency. A total of 106 secondary school students (Grade 8) divided into 4 classes participated in a one-year pedagogical intervention, viewing 24 episodes of a TV series under four experimental conditions with each class being assigned to a different treatment: (1) captions and pre-teaching, (2) captions and non-pre-teaching, (3) subtitles and pre-teaching, and (4) subtitles and non-pre-teaching. Following a pre-/post-test design, form recall and meaning recall gains were examined. Results showed that participants learnt vocabulary in all four conditions, with greater gains in recalling form than in recalling form and meaning. The analysis also showed that, overall, groups that were pre-taught the target items performed better, independently of the language of the on-screen text. An important finding is the role of learners' proficiency prior to the intervention, with higher proficiency related to higher gains. The study contributes to the area of foreign language learning through audio-visual input with results from a longitudinal, classroom-based study with adolescent learners.

Watching foreign language programmes and films with captions (same-language subtitles intended for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) has been shown to assist learners in phonetic retuning, vocabulary acquisition and listening comprehension [e.g. Mitterer and McQueen, 2009. Foreign subtitles help but native-language subtitles harm foreign speech perception. "PLOS ONE" 4, no. 1: e7785. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007785; Montero Perez, Van Den Noortgate and Desmet, 2013. captioned video for L2 listening and vocabulary learning: A meta-analysis. "System" 41, no. 3: 720-739; Rodgers and Webb, 2017. The effects of captions on EFL learners' comprehension of English-language television programs. "CALICO Journal" 34, no. 1: 20-38]. However, relatively little is known about the outcomes and changes in viewing behaviour when learners watch with captions over an extended period if choice and control of viewing material are provided. This article reports qualitative findings of the EURECAP Project in which 36 learners of French, German, Italian and Spanish at intermediate level and above in a large UK university chose from a wide range of films on DVD with optional captions and watched them under their control in their own time. Their experiences as noted in viewing diaries revealed wide differences in viewing behaviour, attitudes to watching with captions and caption-guided viewing strategies over the period of the study. Participants fell into three broad strategic categories: Minimal users who were focused throughout on enjoying films as they would in their L1, evolving users who showed marked changes in their viewing behaviour over time, and maximal users who tended to be experienced at using films to enhance their language learning. We also compare participant behaviour with models of multimedia learning and suggest implications for future practice and research, especially in the light of global video streaming services with captions.

Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of captioning in second language (L2) comprehension and vocabulary learning. However, little attention has been paid to its potential in supporting grammar development, another challenging area in L2 acquisition. In this research, we used a randomised control design to investigate the role of salience-raising through textually enhanced captioned video on L2 vocabulary and grammar development. The experiment for this study was integrated into a one-semester university L2 Spanish grammar course. Through four data-collection sessions, we targeted: the preterite/imperfect, copula verbs, "gustar"-type verbs, and the subjunctive. In each session, participants saw a short grammar lesson before an animated video, which included: (i) captions with textually enhanced target vocabulary, (ii) textually enhanced target grammar, or (ii) a no captioning control. Learners were then tested on their recognition and production of the target items. Results show clear effects of captioning on vocabulary performance. For some grammar structures, there were also positive effects of captioning on production, whereas for other grammar structures no such effect was uncovered. Altogether, these findings confirm the effectiveness of captioning on vocabulary, and illustrate specific difficulties related to grammar captioning, such as the role of structure-specific saliency in the grammatical input.

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the suitability of adult drug court handbooks for participants with low literacy. Methods: A convenience sample of seven drug court participant handbooks from urban drug courts in three regions of the USA were assessed for reading and literacy suitability for low-literacy learners using the Fry Index Readability Formula and the Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM). The Fry Index Readability Formula follows an objective approach using a three-step process of counting three random samples of 100-word passages to calculate grade reading level. The SAM uses a 0-2 range scale to assess six distinct factors of written materials to yield a numerical score as superior, adequate or not suitable. Results: All handbooks were written above the reading level for low-literacy learners with scores at the eighth grade reading level or higher. A few handbooks scored adequate ratings in some SAM categories, and only two handbooks scored superior ratings in any one category. Overall SAM scores showed all handbooks were not suitable for low-literacy learners. Conclusion: Findings indicate that drug court participant handbooks from this sample are not written for low-literacy learners. Key recommendations are to develop a drug court handbook appropriate for participants with low literacy, assess drug court participants' literacy for reading grade level and comprehension and provide multi-modal teaching formats to promote effective learning.

Information seeking (IS) has become a critical activity in video-based environments. Up to now, the effects of support on information seeking (i.e., scaffolding) have seldom been assessed. The twofold aim of the current study was to (a) assess the effects of scaffolding on IS in videos and (b) determine the characteristics of the users' mental models after an IS activity with or without scaffolding. We divided 50 participants into two groups that either did or did not benefit from initial scaffolding during an IS task. Both groups then had to perform a localization task without any further access to scaffolding. Results showed that scaffolding the video by providing a table of contents and markers on a timeline helped students to engage in highly efficient IS, but they had less accurate mental representations of the video than those without scaffolding. The hypothesis that scaffolding provides a usable but external model was therefore supported.

The purpose of the study is to provide a literature review of the work done on sign language (SL) around the world and in Pakistan and to develop a translation tool of speech and text to Pakistan Sign Language (PSL) with bilingual subtitles. Information and communication technology and tools development for teaching and learning purposes improve the learning process and facilitate both teachers and students. In Pakistan, unimpaired people face a lot of problems to communicate with deaf people due to the lack of SL understanding, learning resources, and interpreters. This problem is faced by the teachers who communicate with deaf students in the classrooms. The communication gap is filled with the development of a translation tool as Haseeb and Illyas concluded in their study that using this kind of tool, deaf people will have more opportunities to communicate with other members of society at every level. Different components of technology such as Python programming language, Natural Language Tool Kit, prerecorded PSL videos, Linux-based server, and databases are used to develop the prototype of PSL translation tool. This study provides a literature review to highlight the existing technological work done around the world and in Pakistan and also provides an architectural framework of the PSL translation tool which is developed by the researchers to facilitate the people who face difficulty to communicate with deaf people.

Improving students' knowledge and application of American Psychological Association (APA) formatting rules typically involves spending class time reviewing or practicing these rules. Screencasts (narrated lectures with real-time screen capture) can reduce the time professors devote to teaching APA format. In addition to imparting rules, screencasts illustrate how to implement rules in a digital environment. Across two experiments, we examined whether screencasts effectively taught students how to generally set up a paper and a title page in APA format. Compared to students who accessed the "APA Manual," students who viewed screencasts demonstrated significantly greater gains in knowledge and corrected more errors in a digital environment. When technological demands were higher, students found the screencasts more informative, interesting, and useful than the "APA Manual."

Recent research studies have shown that increased letter spacing has a positive effect on the reading ability of dyslexic individuals. This study aims to investigate the effect of spacing on the readability of different fonts for children with and without dyslexia. Results did not support the hypothesis of better performance among children with dyslexia when reading text in Dyslexie than in other fonts. They, however, revealed that only spacing plays a role in enhancing dyslexic individuals' reading performance because Dyslexie and the Times New Roman interspaced font have no difference. Furthermore, the negative effect of the unfriendly fonts Times New Roman Italic and Curlz MT was eliminated through increased interletter spacing.

An electronic textbook (e-Textbook) is a digitized (or electronic) form of textbook, which normally needs an endorsement by the national or state government when it is used in the K-12 education system. E-Textbooks have been envisioned to replace existing paper-based textbooks due to its educational advantages. Hence, it is of paramount importance for the relevant parties (i.e. national and state governments, or school districts) to draw a comprehensive roadmap of technologies necessary for the successful adoption of e-Textbooks nationwide. This paper provides a brief overview of e-Textbooks and subsequently an extensive discussion on challenges associated with e-Textbooks in the pursuit of replacing traditional textbooks with e-Textbooks. This paper further provides an extensive review on how the challenges have been approached using existing e-Textbook technologies, such as multi-touch technology, e-Paper, Web 2.0 and cloud computing. Literature review and interview have been conducted to identify the challenges of e-Textbooks implementation in terms of e-Textbook usage levels and the reasons of its refusal. There were 180 students and 20 academic staff participated as a sample for interviews. Eight categories of key challenges were identified. Subsequently, assessment was performed on how the evolving e-Textbook technology has been applied to address the key challenges and problems. This article aims to provide a strong foundation for further investigations in e-Textbooks for successful adoption of e-Textbooks in school education. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Figural effect is a response bias that depends on the arrangement of the terms in syllogisms. The usual pattern in construction tasks is that participants tend to give A-C responses when the syllogisms are in figure 4(A-B/B-C), while the majority of their conclusions are in the opposite direction (C-A) for syllogisms in figure 1 (B-A/C-B). We report on one experiment that examines the role of the presentation format of premises (two-line presentation vs. one-line presentation) in categorical syllogisms. The experiment showed that when premises were presented in one-line presentation format, participants generated more A-C than C-A conclusions in all syllogistic figures. However, when premises were presented in twoline presentation format, participants generated more A-C conclusions in figure 4 and more C-A conclusions in figure 1, while there were no reliable differences for either figure 2 (A-B/C-B) or figure 3(B-A/B-C). We discuss the implications of these results for different theories of reasoning.

John Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS) is a career assessment that consists of several booklets designed to be self-scored and self-administered. It simulates what a practitioner and an individual might do together in a career counseling session (e.g., review preferred activities and occupations; review competencies, abilities and possible career course; and consider RIASEC theory). This study examined how individuals used two different interpretive materials with the SDS assessment: (1) two paper booklets and (2) the computer-generated SDS Interpretive Report (SDS:IR). Participants receiving the SDS:IR were more likely to recall their SDS summary codes and expand their options than those receiving the two paper booklets.

Reading on the World Wide Web has become a daily habit nowadays. This can be seen from the perspective of changes in readers' tendency to be more interested in materials from the internet, than printed media. Taking these developments into account, it is important for web-based instructional designers to choose the appropriate font, especially for long blocks of text, in order to enhance the level of readability for students. Accordingly, this study aims to evaluate the effects of serif and sans serif fonts in the category of screen fonts and print fonts, in terms of Malay text readability on websites. For this purpose, four fonts were selected, namely Georgia (serif) and Verdana (sans serif) for the first respondents and Times New Roman (serif) and Arial (sans serif) for the second respondents. Georgia and Verdana were designed for computer screens display. Meanwhile, Times New Roman and Arial were originally designed for print media. A readability test on a computer screen was conducted on 48 undergraduates. Overall, the results showed that there was no significant difference between the readability of serif and sans serif font of both screen display category and print display category. Accordingly, the research findings and the literature overview, suggest that Verdana followed by Georgia is the better choice in displaying long text on websites. Likewise, as anticipated, Times New Roman and Arial fonts provide good readability for print media, which reinforces their status as the printing font category. However, with the current computer screen capability, it can still be an alternative option for instructional web developers.

Twenty-two college students who were deaf viewed one instructional video with standard captions and a second with expanded captions, in which key terms were expanded in the form of vocabulary definitions, labeled illustrations, or concept maps. The students performed better on a posttest after viewing either type of caption than on a pretest; however, there was no difference in comprehension between standard and expanded captions. Camtasia recording software enabled examination of the extent to which the students accessed the expanded captions. The students accessed less than 20% of the available expanded captions. Thus, one explanation for the lack of difference in comprehension between the standard and expanded captions is that the students did not access the expanded captions sufficiently. Despite limited use of the expanded captions, the students stated, when interviewed, that they considered these captions beneficial in learning from the instructional video.

Among the numerous areas of education which have been impacted by technology, the growth of reading texts from computer screens is one of the most widespread. This trend is perhaps most evident at universities with academic journal articles increasing being stored and accessed in this format. As with any technological changes, the spread of screen reading presents educators and students with a range of challenges and opportunities. This paper seeks to examine the general preferences and habits of university students when reading academic articles, specifically their use of annotations and other means of interacting with a text. An on-line survey was conducted and the views of 630 students analyzed. The data reveals several tensions in the preferences and habits of these students and suggests that a knowledge gap may exist which could hamper their ability to interact with digital texts. The article ends with teaching implications and opportunities as well as suggestions for further research in the area.

This paper focuses on a critical analysis of the language of advertisement in selected newspapers and magazines; from the aspect of graphology and lexis of "The Nation Newspaper" and "Newswatch Magazine" respectively. This work is based on the framework of stylistics. Through this study, it is discovered that the language of advertisement is persuasive, informative and it serves as a reminder to the consumer to patronize the products. The study also reveals that both linguistic and non-linguistic features are usually employed to drive and compel consumers to purchase goods whether good or bad. The linguistic forms include the manner and style of composition of texts, lexical choices, use of figurative expression, use of simple diction, use of proper names and emotive expressions etc. The non linguistic forms are the graphitic and graphological features which are put into significant use to rouse the emotions and further catch the attention of the readers/customers; examples include the special use of punctuations, colours, pictorial images and figures. These features help to extensively create effect of the message conveyed in the eyes and minds of the reader. The language features in advertising in the "Nation Newspaper" and "Newswatch" magazines qualifies for a unique variety of the English language.