Rosmawati Rosmawati

(Lead PI:  Assistant Professor Rosmawati; Co-Is: Associate Professor Karin Avnit and Mr Lim Li Siong)

Abstract

The importance of feedback in learning has been widely acknowledged in the education enterprise. However, due to the usually large ratio between teachers and students in real classrooms, teachers often find themselves struggling to offer timely quality feedback that is much needed for meaningful learning. In a communication class in SIT, for example, the number of students can be as high as 25 (and this number is even higher in other modules), which makes it difficult for the instructors to give in-depth feedback on their assignments. Such a high ratio of teacher to students frequently leads to either mediocre feedback given to students or instructors’ burn-out, which is detrimental to students’ learning or the well-being of the teachers. To overcome this problem, this project proposes to shift some of this burden from the teacher to an automated writing evaluation (AWE) tool and peer learning via an integrated approach to feedback.

In this project, we will use AcaWriter which is an AI-based AWE tool that can offer genre-specific feedback and suggest improvements on the rhetorical moves of the texts, in combination with peer and teacher feedback. AcaWriter provides immediate feedback that helps students learn how to improve on the rhetorical structure and genre appropriacy of their texts, while peer feedback helps students in understanding how their texts are perceived by others and learning to negotiate meanings in this process. These two feedback channels only help shoulder some of the teachers’ burden but also enrich students’ learning experience through exposure to various aspects of feedback. Teachers can then use their much-limited time to focus on more in-depth feedback, such as on the critical thinking aspects of the texts. Such quality feedback, again, benefit students in their learning.

In this project, we will evaluate the effectiveness of this integrated approach to feedback in enhancing students’ writing skills and overall learning experience. We hypothesize that this integrated approach to feedback will benefit both teachers and students, leading to a more satisfying experience of teaching and learning. This project also serves as a trial run of the use of a technological aid (i.e, the AWE tool) through an integrated pedagogical design, in enriching the teaching and learning activities in SIT.

In collaboration with Prof. Marjolijn Verspoor (University of Groningen, University of Pannonia) and Prof. Anne Burns (Curtin University)

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses are now prevalent in many universities and institutes of higher learning around the world. An example of such courses is the ubiquitous first-year writing course that is now near mandatory at almost any tertiary institution across the globe. However, not only does the approach taken in these courses vary from institution to institution and country to country, the challenges in their implementation also vary from context to context. In addressing these challenges, and in some cases simultaneously evaluating the success of courses, practitioners frequently put on their researcher hats and conduct studies to improve the methods and approaches in their teaching. Adopting an action research approach, they identify an issue, dilemma, or area of interest in their course, draw on the literature on action research, plan changes to the way they design/teach the course, and implement and evaluate the outcomes before eventually reflecting on and theorising from the findings. Such research often leads to improvements in teaching and learning. 

In this special issue, we invite colleagues who conduct action research in their teaching context, be it EAP or ESP, to showcase their work through papers that are strongly grounded in action research theoretical perspectives, draw on the literature on action research and other research relevant to the research topic, and show how the research feeds into the improvement of their and their institution’s courses or programs. Through this special issue, we would like to demonstrate the many possibilities for action research in EAP/ESP courses and highlight the importance of action research in enhancing teaching and learning in EAP/ESP classes at the tertiary level. Moreover, we invite colleagues to share detailed explanation of their action research to the extent that the research design and implications can be employed by others working in comparable situations. As such, this special issue will also serve as a resource, and perhaps a source of inspiration as well, for those who would like to seek a way to improve their own teaching and their students’ learning by conducting action research. 

Call for Abstracts

As the first stage of submission, a 600-word abstract is invited to this special issue. This abstract should give clear indication of the action research theoretical underpinnings, the context, research issue(s), methods used, and outcome(s) of the action research taken. It should not have been previously published in English or any other language. During the preparation of this abstract, colleagues should observe the Journal’s aims and scope for alignment with the journal’s general direction.

Accompanying this abstract is a separate file that includes each author’s name, affiliation, mailing address, email address, telephone number, and a 50-word biographical statement. In the case of multiple authors, please list the authors in the order of authorship and indicate the corresponding author. 

The due date for abstracts is March 31, 2023. Please submit the abstracts to the managing guest editor at rosmawati@singaporetech.edu.sg

Decisions will be made on the basis of the abstracts whether to invite authors to submit a full paper. All submitted manuscripts will then go through a rigorous peer review process. The final decision on the inclusion of a paper, following any revisions necessary, is also subject to satisfactory completion of this process within the required timeline (see below). 

Proposed Timeline

(Lead PI: Asst. Prof. Rosmawati; Co-PI: Ms. Pua Ching-Yee)

In a flipped classroom design, the precious class time is reserved for the most difficult part of learning, i.e., the application/practice of the knowledge, and hence the “learning” of the content is flipped out to home learning. While such a design has been reported as effective in increasing students’ motivation (Campillo-Ferrer & Miralles-Martinez, 2021; Nouri, 2016) and learning effectiveness (Chou et al, 2021), there are also findings that highlighted the opposite. For example, not all students liked this design, some students preferred more passive explanation (Oudbier et al., 2022), which is the more common practice in traditional classrooms in many Asian countries where teachers do most, if not all of the talking. In SIT, where the emphasis is on applied learning, ideally the class time is dedicated to “application” of knowledge. In other words, a flipped classroom design should ideally be the way to go. However, whether or not such a design is suitable and/or effective is yet to be determined.

Hence, in this project, we would like to propose a study with the following two aims: (1) to measure students’ engagement with learning in a flipped vs a non-flipped classroom design and (2) to measure the effectiveness of the two designs in enhancing students’ learning. Students will be involved in a flipped classroom design in the first half of the trimester, and in a non-flipped classroom design in the second half of the trimester.

In collaboration with Prof. Emeritus Marjolijn Verspoor (University of Groningen)

This book project is an upcoming edited volume that showcases English language/communication courses in tertiary education institutions around the world. Courses (or modules) on English language and communication skills are now rather prevalent in many universities and institutes of higher learning around the world. In English as a medium of instructions (EMI) institutions particularly, these courses are frequently part of the curriculum for students regardless of their disciplines/major specializations. An example is the ubiquitous first-year writing course that is now near mandatory at almost any tertiary institution across the globe. The approach taken in the implementation of these courses, however, varies from institution to institution and country to country. We, therefore, feel the need to put together a volume that maps the landscape of these courses and would like the chapters to focus on curriculum design innovations, instructional strategies, classroom challenges, assessment practices in the teaching and learning process. Thus, in this book we will identify themes and pedagogies used, discuss challenges, and share our reflection on the teaching and learning practice in these courses.

A commissioning editor at Routledge, Katie Peace, has expressed great interest in this volume, and the timeline for this project is as follows:

If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please prepare a title and an abstract (of 500-600 words, not counting references) in a single file (in WORD or PDF format) and send it to Dr. Rosmawati (rosmawati@singaporetech.edu.sg) by 12 Sept 2022. 

In collaboration with Prof. Wander Lowie (University of Groningen)

This research project threads into a rather under-explored territory of fractal linguistics. While the concept of fractals is perhaps more known to those in the hard science fields, the very existence of fractals transcends disciplinary boundaries and is prevalent anywhere in nature - you can find them in the forest, in the river network, in snowflakes, in cauliflowers, and inside our own body (in our vein structure). Even in an abstract such as language, fractals exist. 

In the study of fractal linguistics, evidence has been put forward to demonstrate fractality in language - by proving that the distribution of linguistic constructs follows the power-law relationship. However, the nature of this fractal property of language has not been explored beyond this relationship. Furthermore, considering the way natural languages are used, it is highly likely that language is a multifractal structure (instead of a mono-fractal). Our study sets out to test this hypothesis and to explore the nature of multifractality in language. As an exploratory study, we focus on English texts first before moving into other languages.