Examining Effective Communication During COVID-19 Through Prime Minister's Speeches: The Case of Malaysia

When the COVID-19 virus began spreading aggressively after its first detection, government of most countries impose mandated lockdowns to combat the virus. Subsequently, leaders communicate to their citizens through live telecast, which are usually presented in one language alongside sign language. This may have hindered communication within small ethnic and indigenous communities and thus risking lives. To seek an understanding of the sociolinguistic reality of the interplay and language practices in multilingual countries, this study examines 26 speeches presented by the Prime Minister of Malaysia. The analysis reveals that the main language used is Bahasa Melayu but the Prime Minister switches to English when emphasising important terms. Although the speeches were not translated into community languages, the analysis shows that the top five highest frequency words in both Bahasa Melayu and English transcripts were similar. This result indicates that although effective communication within small ethnic and indigenous communities may not be successful, the Malaysian government still cares about its citizens during the pandemic. The findings provide a snapshot of the language vitality in Malaysia, which acts as a wakeup call for nations that are keen about protecting their citizens while maintaining a multilingual identity. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Exploring multilingual students' feedback literacy in an asynchronous online writing course

Contributing to the scarce empirical examination of multilingual student writers' feedback literacy development in ESL contexts, this exploratory qualitative study drew upon five multilingual international students' feedback interactions, their developing drafts and end-of-unit reflections to empirically examine and extend Yu et al.'s (2022) five-dimension feedback literacy model. Focusing on multilingual students' experiences appreciating feedback, making judgements, managing affect, taking action, and acknowledging different feedback sources in an asynchronous online first-year undergraduate writing course during COVID-19, this study explored challenges and opportunities during participants' feedback literacy development throughout a literacy narrative unit. Findings of the study shed light on growing and investigating multilingual writers' feedback literacy development in online-instructed spaces and point out directions for future research. © 2023 Elsevier Inc.

The Multilingual Twitter Discourse on Vaccination in Germany During the Covid-19 Pandemic

There is evidence that specific segments of the population were hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 pandemic (e.g., people with a migration background). In this context, the impact and role played by online platforms in facilitating the integration or fragmentation of public debates and social groups is a recurring topic of discussion. This is where our study ties in, we ask: How is the topic of vaccination discussed and evaluated in different language communities in Germany on Twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic? We collected all tweets in German, Russian, Turkish, and Polish (i.e., the largest migrant groups in Germany) in March 2021 that included the most important keywords related to Covid-19 vaccination. All users were automatically geocoded. The data was limited to tweets from Germany. Our results show that the multilingual debate on Covid-19 vaccination in Germany does not have many structural connections. However, in terms of actors, arguments, and positions towards Covid-19 vaccination, the discussion in the different language communities is similar. This indicates that there is a parallelism of the debates but no social-discursive integration. © 2023 by the author(s);licensee Cogitatio Press (Lisbon, Portugal).

BERIS: An mBERT-based Emotion Recognition Algorithm from Indian Speech

Emotions, the building blocks of the human intellect, play a vital role in Artificial Intelligence (AI). For a robust AI-based machine, it is important that the machine understands human emotions. COVID-19 has introduced the world to no-touch intelligent systems. With an influx of users, it is critical to create devices that can communicate in a local dialect. A multilingual system is required in countries like India, which has a large population and a diverse range of languages. Given the importance of multilingual emotion recognition, this research introduces BERIS, an Indian language emotion detection system. From the Indian sound recording, BERIS estimates both acoustic and textual characteristics. To extract the textual features, we used Multilingual Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. For acoustics, BERIS computes the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients and Linear Prediction coefficients, and Pitch. The features extracted are merged in a linear array. Since the dialogues are of varied lengths, the data are normalized to have arrays of equal length. Finally, we split the data into training and validated set to construct a predictive model. The model can predict emotions from the new input. On all the datasets presented, quantitative and qualitative evaluations show that the proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art approaches. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.

Sentiment Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination in Bangla Language with Code-Mixed Text from Social Media

The vaccination program which helps avert pandemics is facing new hurdles, including the emergence of hazardous new virus strains and public distrust. Analyzing the sentiment expressed in social media interactions related to vaccines may aid the health authority in implementing public safety procedures and guide the government in developing appropriate policies. The purpose of this research is to identify the public sentiments toward the COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh from social media comments. Comments posted on social media platforms often mix formal and informal language known as code-mixed text and do not adhere to any particular grammatical standards. In addition, the Bangla language lacks computational models and annotated resources for sentiment analysis. To overcome this, we created CoVaxBD, a Bangla-English code-mixed and sentiment-annotated corpus of Facebook comments. This paper also proposes a model for sentiment analysis based on the multilingual BERT. It achieves a validation accuracy of around 97.3 % and a precision score of approximately 97.4%. © 2022 IEEE.

Situated and localised learning: examining the case of two English language teachers in multilingual settings in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article describes the teaching practices of two K–12 English language teachers in the Philippines at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data used in the study came from the interview of the two teachers, and a content analysis of some modules that they used. The study utilised Canagarajah's critical pedagogy framework to describe the extent to which the teachers' reported teaching practices, and the modules they used localised the teaching of English. Results revealed that teachers localised mostly in the level of content and strategies, but considered the language of the texts they used in the classroom to make sure that the meaning and form of the texts were accessible to their students. Moreover, localising was done only as ‘praxis', and not as a ‘mode of inquiry', so students were not made aware of their social positioning. Implications for curriculum design and teacher development programmes are discussed. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

A user-oriented multi-input Sentiment Analysis and Feedback System for mental state awareness necessitated due to COVID-19

Development in technology has led to a spike in sharing of opinions about different subjects on social media, for instance, movie or product reviews. Unprecedented COVID-19 led to forced isolation and affected mental health negatively. This paper introduces a system to detect users' emotions and mental states based on provided input. Among the different data sources available on social media, real-time Twitter data is used in this analysis. Sentiment analysis can be used as a tool at various levels, right from individual to organizational development. Deep learning algorithms like LSTM and CNN lay the foundation of this system. Python libraries and Google APIs are used to add functionalities. Earlier studies only focused on detecting emotions, whereas the proposed system provides the user with a graphical analysis of detected emotions and apt suggestions like motivational quotes or videos. The system accepts multilingual text input, speech, or video input. The scope of this system is not restricted to COVID-19 related texts. This research will assist individuals and businesses and aid future development. © 2022 IEEE.

Cross-language sentiment analysis of European Twitter messages during the COVID-19 pandemic

Social media data can be a very salient source of information during crises. User-generated messages provide a window into people's minds during such times, allowing us insights about their moods and opinions. Due to the vast amounts of such messages, a large-scale analysis of population-wide developments becomes possible. In this paper, we analyze Twitter messages (tweets) collected during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe with regard to their sentiment. This is implemented with a neural network for sentiment analysis using multilingual sentence embeddings. We separate the results by country of origin, and correlate their temporal development with events in those countries. This allows us to study the effect of the situation on people's moods. We see, for example, that lockdown announcements correlate with a deterioration of mood in almost all surveyed countries, which recovers within a short time span. © ACL 2020.All right reserved.

Expanding Multilingual Learning as a Pathway to Equity during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Geographical Analysis of a WHO Online Course in 45 Languages

Real-time learning in health emergencies is a critical mechanism to provide frontline health workers, responders, decision-makers and the public with access to the latest knowledge to save lives, reduce disease transmission and protect the vulnerable. The World Health Organization (WHO) established the OpenWHO.org learning platform to meet this need. Courses are free, self-paced, accessible in low-bandwidth and offline formats, and available in national and local languages. Multilingual production was prioritized and expanded to meet the learning needs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrolment data from the introductory COVID-19 course, which has more than 1 million enrolments across 45 language versions, were examined according to language and geographical reach to assess how multilingual availability contributes to equity in learning. The analysis found that most language versions had uptake clustered in key countries where native speakers are concentrated, while use of some translations was more broadly dispersed. In nearly ¾ of the available language versions of the course, more than ⅓ of enrolments were found in the top country of use. The findings suggest that multilingual courses served as entryways for learners who may not have otherwise been able to participate, even as enrolment numbers likely underestimate the impact. A production policy that prioritizes translation of open online courses into diverse languages contributes to equity in access to public health knowledge at the global and country levels during health emergencies.

Adapting a framework for designing and teaching an online academic writing course for L2 writers

The internationalization of US writing programs and the steady increase of online learning in higher education present challenges for writing programs and instructors in developing and teaching online academic writing courses, particularly courses for international multilingual/second language (L2) writers. Anecdotal accounts of the experiences of the emergency transition to online learning in spring 2020 due to the COVID19 pandemic highlighted many of these challenges, including skepticism of the effectiveness of online teaching and the general unpreparedness to carry it out. The aim of this chapter is to introduce an adapted framework for designing and teaching online L2 writing courses based on Casanave's (Controversies in second language writing: Dilemmas and decisions in research and instruction (2nd ed.) [Ebook]. The University of Michigan Press, 2017) and informed by an exploratory study of instructor and student perceptions of their online writing courses. © The Author(s) 2021. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

Experience with an Interdisciplinary Approach to Removing Barriers Related to IT Personalized Support for Teachers in the Creation and Transmission of Educational Content

Research on IT integration into teaching is an interdisciplinary field that has both educational (didactics) and informatics components. In particular, the situation with the Covid 19 pandemic has forced a push to address personal IT support for teachers in distance education. However, this runs into the problem of the lack of personal educational software, so that in practice the teacher has to adapt to existing technology and test how it can be used for teaching. In this context, the work of a university teacher requires the mass creation of educational content, its transfer between offline computers (laptop, classroom computers) and online environments (web, virtual learning environments, academic information systems, clouds, networks). Given the nature of university teaching, IT support solutions for self-study also face a challenge. However, no single technology covers such a broad scope, so there is a lack of universal solutions. The authors minimize this gap by programming universal software tailored to the needs of the teacher and by building a combined offline/online IT infrastructure on which to conduct the research. Collaborative research by an international team using the infrastructure is a solution to automate the creation of educational packages, including the multi-lingual support. The article clarifies the categories of barriers that the team had to overcome, either from a didactic or an informatics perspective. Here, a new paradigm using a specific data structure (called virtual knowledge) for the rapid reduction and concentration of educational content was proven to simulate virtually any teacher activity. Therefore, the goal of further research is to use the results and experiences to date to build a multilingual learning portal. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The Necessity of Forming Multilingual Competencies in the Educational Process Digitalization

The pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus affected all spheres of society and had a significant impact on the education system, forcing an urgent transition to distance learning formats. As practice has shown, distance learning forms are especially difficult when working in a foreign language environment. The present article aims to highlight critically important to discuss multilingualism in combination with online learning the process of an emergency transition to remote work and distance learning through the eyes of teachers working in multilingual student classrooms and a multilingual educational environment where students are both taught in Russian as a foreign language and in English, which is not native to them. An empirical study using the authors' questionnaire, in which representatives of the "cadre core” took part, showed the professional and psychological readiness of teachers for the transition, on the one hand, and a number of problems associated with the level of administrative support, a decrease in the quality of education and technical problems of the transition, on the other. However, it should be emphasized that, despite some clear advantages of distance working format in a multilingual environment, the assessment of the organization of the transition and its effects should be the subject of close attention, because online learning promotes the development of multilingual skills and competencies and increases the requirements for teaching and strengthens the role of the teacher as their guide. Distance learning formats should be developed in a comprehensive manner, from technical and organizational aspects to content and distance learning technologies. The results of this work are part of a large-scale study aimed at implementing a multilingual approach to learning in new historical conditions caused by global transformations of the existing global world order. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Multilingual students' arguments in early algebra: Writing, refining, and revising through conferencing

This qualitative study sought to understand middle school students' developing mathematical arguments in a linguistically and culturally supportive classroom that featured mathematical writing and oral conferencing. Writing tasks and conferencing focused on developing the core algebraic practice of justifying by emphasizing audience and revision. Inequitable learning opportunities in mathematics education continue to precipitate academic failure and under-achievement among underrepresented and minoritized (URM) students. Classrooms that make use of mathematical writing and discussions and focus on student reasoning can enhance learning opportunities for URM students (Moschkovich, 2013). This study examined how the arguments of middle school students changed in a classroom where mathematical writing and conferences, conducted during remote instruction caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, provided opportunities for reflection and potential revision. The study was guided by the following questions: 1. When asked to do mathematical writing and supported with conferencing in a remote context, what kinds of arguments did students make? 2. How did the mathematical arguments of individuals change over the course of a unit of instruction on generating, selecting, and justifying claims? 3. In what ways did students revise their mathematical arguments during conferencing? Examination of student work revealed the ways that their efforts to justify changed. Upon examination of the Convince Forms, I found that students expanded arguments from describing procedures to making arguments and using examples in mathematically sound ways, and from making no claims to selecting claims and even generating claims of their own. After examination of the mathematical conferences, I found that students expanded their efforts to justify, employing additional proof schemes (Healy & Hoyles, 1998), and revised conjecture-testing procedures (i.e., exemplifying) and meanings for formal words. The findings highlight how students who are multilingual, low-achieving, or designated as special education engage in mathematical argument with support. Moreover, this study illustrates how mathematical argument can be conceptualized as a constellation of approaches that include refining how different parts of an argument can be used in dialectic with the others, i.e., how the use of examples, the further generalization of claims, and further exploration of how to justify can support each other. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Teacher Trainees' Perspectives on Remote Instruction for Multilingual Learners of English

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a shift to virtual learning across many countries and school systems. It is worthwhile to examine the specific ways in which this shift is significant to teacher trainees preparing to work with multilingual learners (MLs). Considering the perspectives of teacher trainees preparing to teach MLs offers an opportunity to identify the questions and concerns that they are likely to have upon graduation. Examining these perspectives can also help to identify ways that teacher trainees can use virtual and remote teaching approaches more constructively. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of an educator preparation program focused on preparing trainees in content areas along with English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), with a focus on the perspectives of teacher trainees who worked with MLs through virtual and remote modalities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper draws on data from an analysis of nine teacher trainees' response journals and course assignments, and includes themes identified from the teacher trainees' perceptions of virtual learning for MLs. The findings from the analysis revealed that teacher trainees emphasized the importance of establishing meaningful professional relationships in the virtual setting with their MLs, especially as a way to facilitate effective instruction and online classroom management. Participants also spoke about the importance of developing culturally responsive and sensitive instruction, and stressed the importance of engaging students and families in appropriate, linguistically accessible ways. Implications for future virtual instruction as well as teacher preparation are also discussed. © 2023 by the authors.

Open-Access Learning as a Pathway to Equity During Health Emergencies

Real-time learning in health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic is a critical mechanism to provide frontline health workers, responders, decision-makers and the public with equitable access to the latest knowledge to save lives, reduce disease transmission and protect the vulnerable. The World Health Organization (WHO) established the OpenWHO.org learning platform to meet this need. Courses are free, self-paced, accessible in low-bandwidth and offline formats, and available in national and local languages. Enrolment data from OpenWHO's introductory COVID-19 course, which has more than 1 million enrolments across 45 language versions, were examined according to language and geographical reach to assess how multilingual availability contributes to equity in learning. The analysis found that most language versions had uptake clustered in key countries where native speakers are concentrated, while use of some translations was more broadly dispersed. In nearly three-fourths of the available language versions of the course, more than one-third of enrolments were found in the top country of use. The findings suggest that courses available in the United Nations languages, as well as national and local languages, served as entryways for learners who may not have otherwise been able to participate. A production policy that prioritizes translation of open online courses into diverse languages contributes to equity in access to public health knowledge at the global and country levels during health emergencies. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

A global portrait of expressed mental health signals towards COVID-19 in social media space.

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has induced a mental health crisis. Social media data offer a unique opportunity to track the mental health signals of a given population and quantify their negativity towards COVID-19. To date, however, we know little about how negative sentiments differ across countries and how these relate to the shifting policy landscape experienced through the pandemic. Using 2.1 billion individual-level geotagged tweets posted between 1 February 2020 and 31 March 2021, we track, monitor and map the shifts in negativity across 217 countries and unpack its relationship with COVID-19 policies. Findings reveal that there are important geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic disparities of negativity across continents, different levels of a nation's income, population density, and the level of COVID-19 infection. Countries with more stringent policies were associated with lower levels of negativity, a relationship that weakened in later phases of the pandemic. This study provides the first global and multilingual evaluation of the public's real-time mental health signals to COVID-19 at a large spatial and temporal scale. We offer an empirical framework to monitor mental health signals globally, helping international authorizations, including the United Nations and World Health Organization, to design smart country-specific mental health initiatives in response to the ongoing pandemic and future public emergencies.

Multilingual students' arguments in early algebra: Writing, refining, and revising through conferencing

This qualitative study sought to understand middle school students' developing mathematical arguments in a linguistically and culturally supportive classroom that featured mathematical writing and oral conferencing. Writing tasks and conferencing focused on developing the core algebraic practice of justifying by emphasizing audience and revision. Inequitable learning opportunities in mathematics education continue to precipitate academic failure and under-achievement among underrepresented and minoritized (URM) students. Classrooms that make use of mathematical writing and discussions and focus on student reasoning can enhance learning opportunities for URM students (Moschkovich, 2013). This study examined how the arguments of middle school students changed in a classroom where mathematical writing and conferences, conducted during remote instruction caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, provided opportunities for reflection and potential revision. The study was guided by the following questions: 1. When asked to do mathematical writing and supported with conferencing in a remote context, what kinds of arguments did students make? 2. How did the mathematical arguments of individuals change over the course of a unit of instruction on generating, selecting, and justifying claims? 3. In what ways did students revise their mathematical arguments during conferencing? Examination of student work revealed the ways that their efforts to justify changed. Upon examination of the Convince Forms, I found that students expanded arguments from describing procedures to making arguments and using examples in mathematically sound ways, and from making no claims to selecting claims and even generating claims of their own. After examination of the mathematical conferences, I found that students expanded their efforts to justify, employing additional proof schemes (Healy & Hoyles, 1998), and revised conjecture-testing procedures (i.e., exemplifying) and meanings for formal words. The findings highlight how students who are multilingual, low-achieving, or designated as special education engage in mathematical argument with support. Moreover, this study illustrates how mathematical argument can be conceptualized as a constellation of approaches that include refining how different parts of an argument can be used in dialectic with the others, i.e., how the use of examples, the further generalization of claims, and further exploration of how to justify can support each other. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The power of language in political communication in times of COVID: Multilingual contrastive analysis of the speeches of Pedro Sánchez, Boris Johnson, Giuseppe Conte and Antonio Costa at the beginning of the pandemic

In this paper, within the framework of Applied Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, we will carry out a multilingual contrastive analysis of the speeches given by the political leaders of Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Portugal at the beginning of 2020, when they announced tough measures to face the health crisis caused by COVID-19. Our initial hypothesis is that they will employ different linguistic resources to persuade the audience, since, at the beginning of the pandemic, political parties joined their forces to make citizens aware of the necessity of working together to face the crisis. The aim of our research is to use real samples of language to detect similarities and differences among the texts, as well as forms of persuasion and/or mass manipulation, and to observe if the sender's ideology is manifested in the discourse. To do so, the research will be based on a qualitative study of the four discourses, but complemented with the data provided by Sketch Engine, which includes the words and collocations most used in each corpus. The results show that, except for some slight differences in the way they appeal to fear, in general the four speeches use similar persuasion techniques, as part of messages that appeal to patriotism, unity in the fight against the virus, and social responsibility. © 2022 Universita degli Studi di Milano. All rights reserved.

El poder del lenguaje en la comunicación política en tiempos de COVID: análisis contrastivo multilingüe de los discursos de Pedro Sánchez, Boris Johnson, Giuseppe Conté y Antonio Costa en los inicios de la pandemia

In this paper, within the framework of Applied Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, we will carry out a multilingual contrastive analysis of the speeches given by the political leaders of Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Portugal at the beginning of 2020, when they announced tough measures to face the health crisis caused by COVID-19. Our initial hypothesis is that they will employ different linguistic resources to persuade the audience, since, at the beginning of the pandemic, political parties joined their forces to make citizens aware of the necessity of working together to face the crisis. The aim of our research is to use real samples of language to detect similarities and differences among the texts, as well as forms of persuasion and/or mass manipulation, and to observe if the sender's ideology is manifested in the discourse. To do so, the research will be based on a qualitative study of the four discourses, but complemented with the data provided by Sketch Engine, which includes the words and collocations most used in each corpus. The results show that, except for some slight differences in the way they appeal to fear, in general the four speeches use similar persuasion techniques, as part of messages that appeal to patriotism, unity in the fight against the virus, and social responsibility. © 2022 Universita degli Studi di Milano. All rights reserved.

Teachers Strengthening Partnerships With Multilingual Families During the Pandemic

The authors describe lessons learned from research on how teachers and districts can better support the education of multilingual learners—including insights gained from remote learning in response to COVID-19—through deepening relationships and understandings with multilingual families. © 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.