With exclusion and domination common themes in many world literatures, this exploratory study examines the portrayal of these topics in Nazaré, a prize-winning 2021 novel by JJ Amaworo Wilson. The book, which is set in a fictional dystopian city-state called Balaal, charts the story of Kin, a young street urchin who is prophesised to lead a revolution against the territory's hated ruling clan, the Matanzas. After briefly outlining the author's background and previous works, the study presents and analyses how aspects relating to exclusion and domination are depicted in the novel. It takes four selected excerpts from different sections of the work as a point of departure which were chosen for the way in which they particularly highlight these themes. Using close reading as the chosen method of textual analysis, these sections are evaluated with the aim of illustrating how these aspects are portrayed and transformed over the course of the narrative as a whole.
Escape Hamlet (English version): The goal is, through gamification methods and experiential learning, to create conditions for pupils and students to become acquainted with (or refresh their knowledge of) Shakespeare's most famous play, as well as to draw attention to specific moments in it that directly relate to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes every person needs to develop today—not only to successfully integrate into the labor market but also to function fully as individuals and as part of society. An integrative approach is used, also aiming to demonstrate that working with a literary work can incorporate educational objectives related to each of the eight key competencies for lifelong learning.
The article presents the design and outcomes of an educational experiment conducted at New Bulgarian University, in which Escape Hamlet, a gamified learning activity based on William Shakespeare's Hamlet, was developed and implemented. The experiment explores the possibility to design an educational activity that successfully combines three objectives: serious engagement with a literary text, work on the key competences for lifelong learning, and student engagement through gamification. The article first outlines the educational context of teaching Shakespeare in Bulgaria and discusses the relevance of competence-based learning. It then explains the rationale for applying gamification and describes the process of designing the game. Based on observations of playthroughs it analyzes how participants interact with the puzzles and reflect on the learning effects of the activity. The article finds that combining subject-based learning with competence-based learning is both feasible and beneficial, and that gamification has significant potential to (re)engage students with learning. The full script of the game is provided in an appendix to encourage further adaptation and use in educational contexts.
Remote interpreting experienced a global surge during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the restrictions that prohibited face-to-face meetings. Although pandemic measures have since been lifted, remote interpreting has remained a relevant and deliberately chosen modality rather than merely an emergency solution. Given its strengthened position on the market, this study examines how translation and interpreting programs at Slovak universities prepare future interpreters for remote interpreting. The data were collected through four focus group interviews and three individual interviews with a total of fifteen university teachers of interpreting courses across all five Slovak universities offering translation and interpreting programs. A thematic analysis of the interviews reveals a lack of systematic approach to remote interpreting training. Remote interpreting is addressed theoretically at two universities and practiced at one, but in each case only superficially, usually as a broader package of interpreting modalities or as a space for experimentation. At the same time, the participants agree that dedicated remote training would benefit students. The findings also outline ways to integrate remote interpreting into existing curricula and identify key challenges, such as the insufficient number of interpreting courses and limited technological resources. Understanding how remote interpreting is currently incorporated into interpreter training in Slovakia can support future improvements to better align education with market needs.
Noticing in second language acquisition (SLA) research is routinely invoked as a necessary condition for learning, yet its conceptual status remains unstable, and its empirical operationalisation persistently contested. Across the literature, noticing has been variously equated with awareness, selective attention, discrepancy detection, depth of processing, intake, or learning itself - often without reconciliation. This article argues that the enduring difficulty of measuring noticing reflects a failure of definition rather than a lack of methodological sophistication. Building on communicative, interactionist, and cognitive perspectives, it advances a process-oriented reconceptualization of noticing as a functional boundary within ongoing communicative activity. Under this account, noticing marks the point at which automatic, predictive processing becomes insufficient for task continuation and processing effort must be renegotiated under task-relevant uncertainty. Noticing is thus treated as relational, transient, and process-internal, rather than as a directly observable mental state. The article shows how this reconceptualization clarifies longstanding evidential ambiguities and outlines its implications for theory and research across modalities in SLA.
