Instructional videos for teaching second language (L2) vocabulary often feature an instructor onscreen. The instructor in the video may involuntarily produce beat gestures with their hands, as occurs in real teaching settings. Beat gestures highlight key information in speech by conveying the rhythm of the language, but do not themselves convey…

This study examined how three auditory lectures delivered at different speeds -- normal (1.0x), fast (1.5x) and very fast (3.0x) speeds -- affected the graduate students' attention, cognitive load, and learning that were assessed by pre- and post-comprehension tests, cognitive-load questionnaire, and Electroencephalography (EEG) device. The…

In this paper we begin to explore how knowledges being generated in bioscience might be brought into productive articulation with the Sociology of Education, considering the potential for emerging transdisciplinary, 'biosocial' approaches to enable new ways of researching and understanding pressing educational issues. In this paper, as in our…

English language readers rarely get glimpses of the state of autism research in China. Given the seriousness of autism, the population of China, and the potential for theoretically interesting cross-cultural insights, we provide a broad survey of research carried out in China on childhood autism. Four themes are considered: etiology, diagnosis,…

How can ELT be made enjoyable and effective? One feasible pedagogical application is to integrate English songs into ELT. Song, a combination of music and lyrics, possesses many intrinsic merits, such as a kaleidoscope of culture, expressiveness, recitability and therapeutic functions, which render it an invaluable source for language teaching.…