The rule of health education on the prospective grooms’ and brides’ awareness in Tarakan city

Background: This study was intended to assess the influence of the exclusive breastfeeding module on the awareness of prospective brides in Tarakan city.Methods: The quantitative approach with pretest and posttest was chosen as research method. The research subjects were prospective brides who were undergoing prenuptial guidance at the Ministry of Religion office in Tarakan city with a sample size of respondents (n=100). Before the module was developed, a survey was conducted as a research draft. The module is created in narrative form and is corrected by experts prior to testing. The exclusive breastfeeding module was spread after the pretest was carried out to measure the awareness of the prospective brides on exclusive breastfeeding. Data analysis was done with t test.Results: Characteristics of the male respondents in the reading exclusive breastfeeding module group were generally aged 25-30 years (52%) and the group listening to the lectures were generally aged 20-24 years and 25-30 years (32% and 32%). Meanwhile, the female respondents in the reading module group and the listening group were generally 25-29 years (40%) and 20-24 years (56%). Male respondents in the reading exclusive breastfeeding module group and the listening to lectures group were generally self-employed (76% and 88%). The male respondents’ awareness in the reading module group and listening to lectures group was statistically all significant with a p<0.05.Conclusions: Basically, all female respondents’ awareness in the reading module and lecture group was statistically significant with a p<0.05. Health education through reading exclusive breastfeeding modules and listening to lectures can increase the brides’ and grooms’ awareness of exclusive breastfeeding.

107 Days and Counting...

It has been roughly six months since my family and I started our quarantine in João Pessoa, Brazil, and to this day we are still at home trying to avoid physical proximity with people from outside. As Italian immigrants (proudly not “expats”) in Latin America, we experienced two main phases of the Covid-19 global crisis: in March and April, with shock and despair, we were following the daily death bulletins coming from Italy; from May onwards, the progressive easing of the situation in Italy coincided with the escalation of contagions and deaths in Brazil. In this essay, written from one of the current epicentres of the pandemic, I draw upon Achille Mbembe and Denise Ferreira da Silva in order to reflect both on the necropolitical governmental machine that literary seems to extract pleasure from this sustained tragedy, and on the self-destructive colonial logic that inscribes the ongoing trivialisation of deaths in Brazil. I discuss the self-inflicted racialised logic that makes such a reasonment possible and diffused, as well as the multiple layers of whiteness and privilege that permit the naturalisation and oblivion of these deaths both from internal (Euro-descendant) and external points of view. I conclude the essay by making reference to my track 107 jorna (107 days), written on the last 1 July (and to be premiered online by the Glasgow-based Lights Out Listening Group), where I combine Sicilian speech and electronic noise in order to articulate my own astonishment, impatience and indignation with the current situation.

EXAMINING THE EFFECTS OF THREE JIGSAW LISTENING ACTIVITIES ON TEXT COMPREHENSION: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

This exploratory study examined the relative effects on L2 listening comprehension of three different jigsaw procedures: having learners listen to either the first or the second half of an input text and then share the content with a classmate who did not listen to the same half (Jigsaw-Listening 1), or having them implement the same procedure as above, but followed by their actual exposure to either the remaining content (Jigsaw-Listening 2) or the whole listening passage (Jigsaw-Listening 3). Their text comprehension as gauged by ten multiple-choice content questions was subsequently compared to that obtained by learners who listened to the same complete input text, either once (One-time Listening) or twice (Repeated-Listening). The quantitative results showed that all Jigsaw Listening groups obtained better text comprehension than the One-time Listening group. The learners in Jigsaw-Listening 2 and 3 were also found to outperform those in the Repeated-Listening group. Follow-up interviews with some participants randomly selected from the Jigsaw-Listening groups revealed that these learners carried out different metacognitive strategies to complete their assigned listening procedures and the more strategies they used the better listening outcome they produced. These findings have implications for both L2 listening instructors and course designers.

School goes on TV. A research on the quality of an educational program at the time of Covid 19

The history of Italian public television presents many educational programs created with the aim of offering a cultural and educational service supporting the school. The closure of the school, due to the health emergency from Covid 19, has given a strong incentive to the use of technologies in education, while highlighting the presence of an important digital divide. The Italian public television broadcaster (RAI) launched the programme “La Banda dei FuoriClasse” to support children and adolescents after the closure of schools, and integrate the public educational offer. The paper presents the results of a research promoted by RAI Gulp, University of Florence and University of Palermo, for the monitoring and evaluation of the didactic and communicative quality of the program. A specific grid was developed and 105 observation grids were collected for each episode. The results indicate that “La banda dei fuoriclasse” was highly appreciated by the listening group for the technical and didactic aspects that characterize the program, with a strong emotional implication.

Short-term effects of sound localization training in virtual reality

Head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) capture the direction-dependant way that sound interacts with the head and torso. In virtual audio systems, which aim to emulate these effects, non-individualized, generic HRTFs are typically used leading to an inaccurate perception of virtual sound location. Training has the potential to exploit the brain’s ability to adapt to these unfamiliar cues. In this study, three virtual sound localization training paradigms were evaluated; one provided simple visual positional confirmation of sound source location, a second introduced game design elements (“gamification”) and a final version additionally utilized head-tracking to provide listeners with experience of relative sound source motion (“active listening”). The results demonstrate a significant effect of training after a small number of short (12-minute) training sessions, which is retained across multiple days. Gamification alone had no significant effect on the efficacy of the training, but active listening resulted in a significantly greater improvements in localization accuracy. In general, improvements in virtual sound localization following training generalized to a second set of non-individualized HRTFs, although some HRTF-specific changes were observed in polar angle judgement for the active listening group. The implications of this on the putative mechanisms of the adaptation process are discussed.

IMPLEMENTASI KEPUTUSAN WALIKOTA BATU NO. 180 TAHUN 2010 TENTANG PEMBENTUKAN, PEMBINAAN DAN KEPENGURUSAN KELOMPOK INFORMASI MASYARAKAT DESA/KELURAHAN KOTA BATU (STUDI PADA DINAS KOMINFO KOTA BATU)

The Community Information Group (KIM), formerly known as KELOMPENCAPIR (Reader and Pirsawan Listening Group), is still needed by the community until now, other than as a Distributor or Community Information Agent. It functions as a Negative Information Filter (Hoax). This research began in September 2018 until December 2018, the research was conducted at the Communication and Information Office of Batu City. The informants of this research are the Head of Partnership and Collaboration in the Field of Communication and Information Communication Batu, and the Chairperson of KIM Batu City. The data validity checking technique used in this study is to use the Triangulation Technique. The results of this study indicate that the Implementation of Formation, Development and Management of KIM in the Village / Village in Batu City has been going well according to the duties and functions of each Implementer. Supporting Factors in Implementation are clear Legal Regulations / Umbrellas, Enthusiastic and Good Community Participation. Inhibiting Factors in Implementation are Facilities and Infrastructure, Education level, Limited Operational Cost Budget.

Comparing the Effects of Listening Input and Reading Input on EFL Learners’ Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

This study examined the effects of either listening or reading input on 88 first-year non-English-major Chinese university EFL students’ incidental acquisition in vocabulary form, meaning and production. The students were put into a Listening Group (n = 47) and a Reading Group (n = 41), each of which finished either two listening activities (each consisting of a dialogic text and an information transfer task) or two reading activities (each consisting of a reading text and five multiple-choice questions). The four texts all contained five low-frequency target words which a revised Vocabulary Knowledge Test had shown to be only slightly known by the participants before the activities. The results of the post-tests showed that the Reading Group had general acquisition advantage over the Listening Group in terms of all the three vocabulary aspects, and due to the fact of rich target word contexts and repeated access to the texts, the Listening Group manifested vocabulary meaning acquisition nearly equal to the Reading Group. Overall, the study shows the notably advantageous effects of reading input on incidental vocabulary acquisition, and concerning facilitating vocabulary acquisition through listening, it points out the importance of increasing opportunities for learners to process listening input with rich contextual clues through task repetition.

Short-term effects of sound localization training in virtual reality

ABSTRACTHead-related transfer functions (HRTFs) capture the direction-dependant way that sound interacts with the head and torso. In virtual audio systems, which aim to emulate these effects, non-individualized, generic HRTFs are typically used leading to an inaccurate perception of virtual sound location. Training has the potential to exploit the brain’s ability to adapt to these unfamiliar cues. In this study, three virtual sound localization training paradigms were evaluated; one provided simple visual positional confirmation of sound source location, a second introduced game design elements (“gamification”) and a final version additionally utilized head-tracking to provide listeners with experience of relative sound source motion (“active listening”). The results demonstrate a significant effect of training after a small number of short (12-minute) training sessions, which is retained across multiple days. Gamification alone had no significant effect on the efficacy of the training, but active listening resulted in a significantly greater improvements in localization accuracy. In general, improvements in virtual sound localization following training generalized to a second set of non-individualized HRTFs, although some HRTF-specific changes were observed in polar angle judgement for the active listening group. The implications of this on the putative mechanisms of the adaptation process are discussed.