Welcome back to our series of e-lectures about the history of English. This e-lecture discusses the sound inventory of Middle English, indicating the type of sound changes that led from Old English to Middle English and illustrating the pronunciation of Middle English using as many examples as possible. We will do the following in this e-lecture. First, we will define a reference variety of Middle English. Then we will point out the major changes that happened from Old English to Middle English. We will list and discuss the Middle English phonemes and will eventually exemplify Middle English on the basis of an excerpt from the Canterbury Tales. Now, during the Middle English period that lasted from 1100 to 1500, dialectal differences were becoming greater than during the Anglo-Saxon times where West Saxon had emerged as some sort of standard. The dialectal situation in Middle English was different and a new standard was eventually based on London's speech, essentially an East Midland dialect. The transition from Old English to Middle English was marked by a number of sound changes that affected both consonants and vowels. Whereas most consonantal changes had little or no effect on the general organization of the English language, the vocalic changes by contrast were highly influential with regard to the development of Middle English morphology. In particular, the realization and eventual loss of vowels in unstressed syllables as in Old English, Herthe, where we marked the stressed syllable in red, led to the weakening of the entire Old English case system in Middle English and thus eventually to the fixing of word order from a relatively free word order in Old English to SVO in Middle English. Well, here is the second step that led to this reduction, the loss of the final unstressed vowel which led to the pronunciation of Herthe to Herthe and from here it's only a small step to present-day English heart. Let us look at the phonemic changes in detail. Do you remember the Old English fricative rule? Well, here it is. It was quite simple. It simply said that the fricatives, the dental fricative The, the labial dental fricative The and the alveolar fricative Sir, here expressed by a placeholder, a capital, you might call it archipholium, had two allophones each, a voiced one in voiced environments, for example Drivan, and a voiceless one elsewhere. Here the example is Fur. This changed in Middle English. Now all former fricative allophones became new phonemes. For example, the labiodental one The, the dental one The and the alveolar one Sir. This phenomenon has become known as the voicing of fricatives. It is not entirely clear why English that had got along nicely without a voiced, voiceless phonemic fricative contrast for almost half a millennium should develop such a feature. The following hypotheses are generally put forward. The influence of French loanwords could have been at work. A mixture of several dialects could have influenced this development. And last but not least, the loss of final vowels which led to a less voiced environment. Over and above these changes in the inventory of consonantal phonemes, the following consonantal changes occurred during the Middle English period. Well, here is the first one. The loss of glottal fricatives before consonants examples are items such as Laugh, which became Laugh rather, which became Rather. Now we know that there are some environments where this did not take place. For example, the typical environment is the WH environment, where the glottal fricative has survived even until the present day in some varieties of English. Some people still say which or where and so on. Another example is the loss of the voiced vela fricative, a typical Germanic consonant. Halrien became Halwen. Fuhl became Fowl. Or take this one, the loss of the labiovela approximate after consonants. The examples listed here are Two, which became Two, or Swa, which became Sa. Further consonantal changes are here, for example, the loss of the voiceless africate, post-alveolar africate in unstressed syllables. So here the syllables have been nicely marked by the dot separator. Soth li che became Soth lia. Another typical change that affected the transition from Old English to Middle English is the loss or the replacement of the prefix je by a simple vowel. So items such as jenoch became inoch, jedriven became idriven. So clearly a change of the prefix. And finally, due to the levelling of unstressed syllables, final nasals were lost typically in infinitives such as Luvian, which became Luvia, or driven, which became driva. Let's now look at some vocalic changes. Now the most significant vocalic change in Middle English was the addition of new diphthongs due to the influence of French, of course, or due to some consonantal changes. Well, here are some of them. OI was a new one as in joye. O came in new as in groen. And I as in seide. Further inventorial changes concerned the loss of the rounded front vowel u, where fur became fir. And the raising of the low back vowel a to o, example stan became staun. The most influential change, as already said, was the weakening of vowels in unstressed syllables. All of them appearing as the central vowel schwa. And the examples we've listed here are stanas, which became stanus. Furol, which became foal. In spelling, by the way, unstressed vowels were mostly represented by the character e. Other phonological changes that mark the transition from Old English to Middle English include the disappearance of the low front vowel a, the so-called ash, which became more centralised. And the monophongisation of most Old English diphthongs. Let's now look at the phonemes of Middle English in detail. There were, first of all, 13 monophongs, seven long ones, like in Old English. Five short monophongs and one central monophone. The number of diphthongs was now six and there were 23 consonant phonemes in Middle English. Let us look at them in detail. Here are the seven long monophongs. Now apart from some qualitative changes, that is vowel length, the quantity, that is the position, front, back, high, low, was retained as a distinctive feature in most cases. Furthermore, the Old English diphthongs became monophongs in Middle English. The most significant change, as you can see here, was that Middle English no longer had rounded front vowels such as yu or yu. Here are the long monophongs. The high front vowel yi as in tide, present-day English, tide. The mid high front vowel yi as in grain, present-day English, green. The mid low front vowel air as in mat, present-day English, meat. The low central vowel a as in maken, present-day English, make. The mid low back vowel o as in got, present-day English, goat. The mid high back vowel o as in foud, present-day English, food. And finally, the high back vowel u as in huss, present-day English, house. Orthographically, by the way, length was no longer indicated by a macron, but either by vowel length or vowel clusters, or it had to be remembered. Let's now add the five short vowels and the central monophong to this system. Now, let's listen. There was a short e as in kissen. There was a short e as in bed. There was a short a slightly backed as in that. There was a short o as in hoppen. There was a short u as in pho.  Okay, so much for the monophongs. Let's now turn our attention to the six diphthongs in middle English. Although all old English diphthongs smoothed to monophongs in middle English, an assortment of new diphthongs arose. Most of them as a result of the vocalization of old English consonants, primarily the approximate w or the rounded front vowel u. And they occurred between vowels, but were now turned into diphthongs. The diphthongs were all closing. That is, their second vocalic element was higher than its onset. This movement towards a higher target can also be referred to as up-gliding. Here they are. Let's start with the back up-gliding diphthongs. There's first of all this one here. Iu as in triuva. Then we have eu as in feuva, present-day English few. And there was this one. Eu as in blower, present-day English blow. And now the front up-gliding ones. Here they are. Ai as in dai, present-day English day. Oi as in present-day English joy, middle English joy. And finally, ui as in point, present-day English point. So much for the vowels, monophthongs and diphthongs. Now here are the consonants. And as we said, there were 23 consonantal phonemes. Middle English retained all old English consonants. The only system-wide change between the consonants of old English and middle English was the already mentioned addition of the phonemic voiced fricatives. For example, se as in son or ze as in reason were no longer alophones of the same phoneme, but became independent phonemes. And inventorily, the sound inventory was now almost identical with that of present-day English. Only on the alophonic level, we still had the palatal and vela fricatives as alophones of a glottal fricative. Here they are. She as in licht and ch as in thocht. As far as roticity was concerned, middle English still had a high degree of roticity. That is, the R was pronounced in all contexts even after vowels. And like in old English, it is still hard to say what type of R was used. The alveola krill, the alveola approximate, or in special cases the alveola flap as in driven. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that the alophones of R vary freely. So, you have the choice. You can either say ridden or ridden. You can say yer or yer. Finally, some comments about the orthography of middle English. Now, the Norman conquest made the change from old English to middle English look more sudden than it really was by introducing new spelling conventions. The Normans disregarded traditional Anglo-Saxon spelling and simply spelled the language as they heard it, using many of the conventions of Norman French. During the middle English period, spelling styles varied greatly over time and in different areas of the country. The alphabet shown here thus contains only generalizations, focusing primarily on the most common features of middle English. And as you can see, there was no longer any use of the makron to indicate vowel length. So, this was out. Vowels such as the ash and the ev were no longer used. And the thorn also gradually disappeared. All these vowels were no longer, vowels and consonants were no longer used. The thorn, however, was still at least at the beginning part of the system. And then, quite interestingly, there's a new consonant that supplemented the middle English alphabet. By and large, however, the alphabet became almost identical with what we know from present day English. Before we now exemplify middle English, let's say something about the literature that serves as the basis for this exemplification. The many linguistic developments which identify the middle English period are most evident in the poetry and prose of the second half of the 14th century. There are several surviving prose texts, especially on religious themes. Notably, the first complete translation of the Bible into English by John Wycliffe and among the best known poetic creations of that time is the poem Piers Plowman by William Langland. However, the universally best known poetic achievement in middle English are, of course, the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. They provide a wealth of information about the medieval attitudes and society and about the contemporary linguistic structure and style. And now I'm going to exemplify middle English by reading a passage from the Canterbury Tales. In fact, I will take the prologue of the Canterbury Tales. Here it is. And the young son has in the realm his halve course, your honor. And smaller folies mark a melody that sleep all the night with open ear. So pricketh him, nature in here curages, than a long folk to go on pilgrimages. And palmrests for to saken strong just rondes, to ferne halves, cool in sundry londes. Well, that may suffice as an impression and we can now summarize this lecture. The middle English sound system was in a transition from a system very much Germanic in character to a sound system that was now influenced by French and had changed in several ways. New vowels and consonants came in and suprasegmental aspects affected the metrical structure of words. The effects of these changes on middle English morphology and syntax were not discussed in this e-lecture. However, from the general principles of language change, we know that phonological changes are always at work and more dramatic linguistic changes affect the morphology and the syntax of a language. And exactly this is what happened. From a synthetic language with a relatively free word order, middle English changed to a far more analytic language with a more or less fixed word order. We will come back with this in another e-lecture about the morphology and syntax and all these changes that middle English underwent. So see you there.


What's good, Joshua boros back again with another video. So we're going to check out Ember Moon on frustrations with WWE creative man. This is going to be an interesting one because Ember Moon in my opinion was someone I was really looking forward to like actually doing like like prospering on the main roster like she did on NXT on NXT. She was fantastic. I love what they were doing with her when she came up to the main roster. I'm like, Hey, man, she should be the next next star in the women's division and she was plagued with injuries and then WWE didn't seem like she captured the momentum that she had from NXT. Then they brought her back down to NXT and I don't know, man. It just I felt like they didn't really utilize Ember Moon to her max maximum potential. I don't think they really, in my opinion, from what I could tell outside of the injuries and stuff. I don't think they really realized what they had in a in a talented women's wrestler like Ember Moon. She can go, you know what I'm saying? And people definitely was liking her character in the ring. So I'm not sure, you know what went wrong, but maybe she will explain what was some of the issues she was dealing with. But appreciate all love and support, man. Let's get right to this. And I'm very excited to see what she has to say. We're starting to feel like you weren't loving it.  Do you feel like in a way it became full circle after you get signed that there was a point where you're like, this isn't as fun as I thought it was going to be. Oh, yes. And I'm okay. We're going to talk about it. I feel like I feel like I feel like I need to talk about it just to get it off my chest and to get it out there in the universe. Because my last four months was just one of those moments that I wasn't having fun anymore. And it started with Shotzi being gone and Shotzi being drafted. And I remember like thinking like, I was sitting at home and I got a phone call saying, Hey, we don't want you to be upset. But Shotzi just got moved to Smackdown and she is debuting with Tegan Knox as a tag team. And I just was sitting there and I was like, I was playing D&B the most beautiful day of my week and I'm getting a phone call about how Shotzi's been drafted. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm so happy for her. And then like the tag team thing popped out. And I was like, but we're the tag team and we have merch and we're doing fun things.  And it was just like, but they're like, don't worry, we have stuff for you. When someone says, don't worry, you probably should already be worrying. And I was like, okay, cool, cool. And I remember like going to Hunter and Hunter was just like, I have no clue what's happening. We'll figure it out together. See, and this is what a lot of people in the wrestling community, I think a lot of us kind of had a feeling Triple H didn't really have no idea when it came to what they were going to do with them on a main roster for the most part. Like Triple H did all he could to like help cultivate them to who they are for, you know, the WWE brand. But Vince ultimately has ultimate say so in anything related to WWE at this point, what he always has for the most part. So when it comes to Vince and you know, what they feel like, you know, what Vince feel like characters should be and how they should be presented on the main roster, Triple H doesn't really have much say so and control as much as we would want it to be. You would think it would just be a simple NXT main roster, keep them the same for the most part, maybe switch up tweak stuff here and there, but you don't really have to do too much. And Vince be like, nah, we got to change this. We got to change this. We got to do this. We got to, you know, we got to now we got to switch it up. You know what I'm saying? So I don't know, man, it just it just sucks because Triple H did a lot of great for NXT, but you don't see much of it on the main roster. You rarely see any of the greatness he had in NXT. You don't see that transfer into the main roster. And like that was like so much of what I needed at that time because no one really knew what was happening. You know, Bayley had gotten injured and they I know Shotzi and Tegan were going to do dark matches for a tryout anyway, you know, and they were like, well, we already had these girls here. Let's throw them out there. But the problem I had was kind of like some of the newer writers were like coming from Rod coming from SmackDown. We had no idea you and Shotzi were a tag team. And like just sitting there and just a lot of how WWE backstage is having to play the game of like, oh yeah, man, it's cool. We get it. We're down here at NXT. It wasn't like we weren't front page of calm or anything when we won the titles. But that's fine. Yes, that doesn't come on. I don't here's the other thing. I think I talked about it in my recent video. I'm not sure what video I talked about it on when I was talking about sometimes Vince needs to let the writers kind of breathe and let them come up with some creative stories and kind of roll with their ideas since you hired them.  You can't care. Well, not that much. Like you got to be willing I don't know man. I don't know. It's just it's just a mess sometimes with WWE and their booking and their creative team.  A lot of the times because it's all about not making waves and it's just like, okay, yeah, it's fine. Cool. Yeah, I bet you didn't know we were a tag team. Look at shop. Look at this, you know, and it's just like, okay, cool. And it was like, you know, me and Hunter and the head writer at the time we had all came up with we're gonna do a heel turn for me because that's new that something different. And before that we wanted to do like a losing streak. And or at least that was my thought is let me do the losing streak. I see all these new faces coming through here. My part of my job at NXT was to help new talent on TV. You know, which I which I get that you know, I've been around for a very long time. Or like, and I've been doing this what like 1617 years at this point in time, you know, and it was like, you know, and I and I love this business so much that I didn't mind.  Let me get super frustrated. I like that. Okay, right. That sounds something different for our character. Great idea. We got ABCDF. We're going to do your first feud with this person or this person. And then the first match happens and then I'm off TV for four weeks. What? And then I'm like, okay. They're like, don't worry, we got this. We got this. Then like Hunter disappeared. And then I was supposed to do a match with that. Once Hunter disappeared. It wasn't much. It wasn't much. I'm telling you, it wasn't much. Even, you know, despite his, you know, serious illness, you know, serious medical situations he was dealing with. Once Vince got involved, it was raps. It was definitely raps for like some of your the OG, the black and gold NXT crew. Surrey. And I ended up getting a rash on my arm. And I had an allergic reaction to something that they thought was something else. So they pulled me from the match. And I was like, okay, cool, whatever. That's fine. All right, we're going to keep trucking. They're like, hey, we'll do this match next week. And then another three weeks later, they're like, hey, we're going to do this match. That match gets pulled from TV.  We really like her. She's a sweet girl. We really think this would be a fun match. You two are in the main event of 205. And I was like, okay, cool. That sounds great. Like I'm never going to say no to having a match on TV regardless of where it's airing or whatever like that. And me and Korra go out there and we have just a fun banger of a match. And they're like, yeah, you guys, and they go, you're turning in this match, but we want to make it subtle. Right. So they kind of turn me, but they don't. And then there was like a lot of, I don't know, confusion on what was supposed to happen. And then some kind of way, I remember going online to be like, did, did Ember turn heel? Did she? And like that, I was like, I don't know if I turned heel or not. You know, and then off TV for three weeks and I have the match with Mandy. And they're like, we're, we're finally pulling the trigger on this. And I get a note that week saying, Hey, in two weeks, we need you to dye your hair, fire colored again. We need you to get the red contacts. You're going back to the old Ember Moon character. That's this is Pervance.  We're trying to get the old music and all that stuff together. And I was like, all right, great. This is great. So I go home, get my bottle whiskey. I'm dying this hair because I have to hand dye that myself. It takes an astronomical amount of time. You do it all yourself. Wow. Yes. I dyed my hair extensions that fire colored ombre takes a minimum of eight hours. God. Damn.  So I'm having to find different colors and I'm spending a fortune on this hair. And two weeks later, I show up to TV. I'm like super motivated. I'm happy.  You know, just wait it out, just wait it out. And I remember Ryan Katz and I went and filmed like a kind of demo of kind of the vibe that I wanted. And I was like, and he's like, this could be awesome. Da da da. Yeah. Come back. I get the video ready. I'm ready to show everyone after TVs and they go, Hey, we got some bad news. Oh, no. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? I just I got this video. No, Vince is pulling you off TV indefinitely. What? And I just kind of sat there and I was just like, what? What did I do wrong?  Why? He's like, you did nothing wrong. And I was like, I have done everything that you guys have asked me. I have gone over and what in the hell? What type of someone explained to me the logic? You tell them, hey, do this. We're going with the old gimmick.  She's excited. I think a lot of us fans were like, holy shit, the old Emra Moon is back with the hair and the music. She's a heel now. Let's get this going. Just to show up and be like, ah, nah, we're pulling you from TV indefinitely. Why? What did I do? What the? Love. Like, I can't express to you like when they put me in shots in a tag team, everyone knows everyone backstage knew like I'm not a tag team person. I hate tag teams because there's just too many moving parts.  It's just that it requires so much more to give versus relying just on yourself for that. You have to rely on like three other people in the ring to make sure everything's on point, which is fun. And I felt like me and Shotzi capitalized on it. And we were just so motivated within that tag team to build a division. And then we weren't able to. But like me showing up to that TVs and it's like two a.m. And I just remember sitting there and I was like, I've done everything you guys have asked me to. I've done over and beyond. I've branched out. I'm sorry, I'm getting emotional about it. I'm trying not to, but I understand like this is the dream job, especially like salaries of wrestling fan, like long wrestling fan. And when you when you care about something and you care about this business so much more, not just for yourself, but for everyone involved, it hurts so much more because for so many years, I've been not about myself. If that makes sense, I've been for the match for the other people and to be told that I have done nothing wrong. And I was taken off TV for doing absolutely nothing wrong. It hurts so bad because I was so happy walking into work. And I remember what Shotzi left. I remember going to my makeup artist and going, I'm so unhappy. I'm so unhappy.  And I remember looking at someone else like I cater to children. I am not about to wear fishnet booty, but cheek shorts because we had a two hour meeting about how to dress like Mandy Rose. Damn. That's not fair. Not everyone is going to be Mandy. Mandy is absolutely phenomenal. And she is an amazing person, but not everyone is Mandy Rose. And that's like, I started seeing this downslope as soon as Hunter was gone. And like for the first little bit, we didn't know why he was gone. We just knew he wasn't there, you know. And so it became this like, I got so angry. And we don't we got to put respect on Triple H name because he did all he could to make NXT what it was, bro. Oh, man. Duh, this is this is heartbreaking. Holy. And I remember sitting there and I was like, I did nothing wrong.  I didn't I said, you take shots away from me. Now Hunter's gone.  You guys promise I wouldn't be lost in the shuffle. And I said, I went on this losing streak to help you guys out to help build other talent. So I could get a reward. And they were like, well, don't not everything's lost number.  And I'm just like, so you're taking me off TV. And you're trying to make me a coach. And I just remember like laughing. And I was like, you know what, I said, if I've done nothing wrong, I said, you can cancel all my flights. I said, I'm not coming to help these people that do not care about what I do. They only care about the paycheck that hits their bank account. They're not passionate like me. I'm not going to come up here and help these people that don't care about what we do when there's no benefit for me. When I've done nothing wrong, when I've given you my entire right side of my body between my elbow surgery and my Achilles surgery, I've given you this entire side for no reward, not even a thank you. And like, you want me to coach, you want to take me off TV to come coach and I just, I remember just like sitting there a moment and I got teary. I just like that. He's like, are you okay? I go, no, I'm not okay. I said, this is what you can do. I said, I'm not coming up here to coach.  I said, I was supposed to come to NXT to repackage and then go back up to me and roster that was supposed to be within the year, but I'm still here. You took Shotzi away from me. I said, I have nothing to go off of. I said, so I'm going home. I said, cancel all my flights, cancel all my hotels. I said, if you have a flight there and you have no creative for me, I'm not getting on the flight.  So I am going to go home and I said, you leave me there till you have something for me. And I said, and even then I said, I need to approve the creative before I hop on the flight. And it's the first time I've ever pulled this card. And I remember thinking, I think I just quit the entire time.  Yeah, I'm going to quit today. And then I actually did. And I remember just kind of getting real small and quiet and like I was yelling. I was yelling because I was so angry. And I remember one of my last promos that I ever cut on the indies just kind of flashed in my head is that like, well, you know, I hope I don't come back here. But if I do, we all know it's because of my mouth. And I remember that flashing in my head. I just kind of laughed at myself and I was kind of crying. And I had gotten a couple. The worst part about this is that on some level, I knew that I was leaving. I had already gone and bought an extra bag and kept it in the locker room. So I can pack all my stuff and like it had been there for like a month. And I was just like, I'm so unhappy. Like I see where this is going between the booty but cheek shorts meeting and like them telling girls to alter their gear to make it more revealing. And some people were very uncomfortable with that. And they were like, Nope, this is what they want. You got to do it. It didn't matter how that person felt. And I was like, this isn't what I signed up for anymore. This isn't about the wrestling. This isn't about the art that we create in the ring. This is turning into everything that I left on Ron Smackdown. You could just see if the pity parties started forming in the locker rooms. And that's crazy. Literally when that when Vince took over and they came up with NXT 2.0, that pretty much was it, bro. They literally wanted to they wanted it to be Ron Smackdown light. Are there some good things on the show? Yeah, there are some good things on the show. Granted, I stopped watching it. I just I just because it's Monday Night Raw light. It's Smackdown light. Like Monday Night Raw and Smackdown. There's a few cool segments and everything else is kind of just it's like a toss up. It's not it's not wrestling more, more or less. It's more about the entertainment aspect of it. So, oh, man, that's that's so sad to hear. The jealousy and the cattiness. Well, why is this person on TV and why is she can't do this and I just was sitting there and I was just like, I'm an adult.  And I'd be like, guys, it's okay. You know, and I'd be that locker room leader because if I didn't, it would just go into the negative zone and no one would be able to have any type of positivity and everyone would hate the job that we have all worked so hard to be at. Yo, I bro. Amen. I will say this. Ember Moon. Yo, that's sad. She went through that, bro. That is so sad. Outside of the injuries and stuff like I really was hoping they would really do something with her, bro. And just to see how things turned and how she was feeling, man. It was like, yo, this is not it's not something that she loved anymore. Like she wasn't loving what was happening. And that's that's sad, bro.   He'll all this great things. You getting excited just to show up and be like, nah, man, you can be a coach, though. That's kind of I'm gonna be honest with you. That's messed up, bro. That's and you can tell that still hurts her because she got so emotional. Obviously that hurt her. That's messed up, bro. That's oh, man. Once Vince got a hold of NXT and had his people take over it, it was done. It was wraps. It wasn't the same. It wasn't the same. And this is what happened to some of the individuals.  That's cold, bro. I don't even know what to say. That's hard. That's that's that's sad, man. I really don't even know what to say to that. I'm just kind of like, you know, I'm oh, man. Damn, bro. That's messed up, bro. Hey, but I'm glad that she's, you know, you know, I think she's doing her thing on the independent scene or whatnot. So as long as she's happy and what she's doing, that's all that really matter. If if I don't take anything from this video, man, do not settle. If you're passionate about something and you want to go for it, go for it. But do not let anybody derail that for you, no matter how much money they're throwing at you or whatever they say, do not settle. Do not settle. Keep your passion alive as long as you can. And if you can't keep it alive with whoever you're working with, keep taking somewhere else, bro. Do not settle for any reason, bro, because you'll end up hating the thing that you love so much. But yeah, man, comment down below. Let me know, man.  Because it kind of hit me, man. That was sad. That was so messed up, bro. Oh man, that was truly messed up in WWE. They need to do better with like taking care of the talent that that literally didn't give their all to them. They got to do better with that because that was that was cold blooded, bro. But I appreciate all the love and support. Road to ADK. Appreciate y'all kicking me. See y'all next time. Peace.


Dennis, I was just wondering if everyone could introduce themselves, the participants, in the chat. That'd be great. Is there still an echo? A little bit. Okay. I'm going to get going here. So my name is John Dennis, and with me is Mikhail Kaportso on the chat, and we're from the University of Perugia. You'll notice that there's been a slight change in the title. We're talking about still the ICT solutions and key educational factors, so creating meaningful learning for children with a medical condition, key educational factors, and related ICT solutions. So all right, let's start. So in this webinar, we present the results of two focus groups conducted to collect information on key educational aspects in information and communication technologies, ICTs, involved in home and hospital education of children with a medical condition. All right, for the focus groups, I just wanted to say something about them. They're really a great way for us to be able to explore people's knowledge and experiences and can be used to examine not only what people think, but how they think and why they think that way. So therefore, the focus group members are able to explore and clarify their views. All right, so basically, before we start, I wanted to say something about children with medical conditions. For children with a medical condition, long periods of isolation can have a negative impact on their cognitive, psychological, and social well-being. Hold on, trying to move forward down here. So during these long periods of isolation, agitation, confusion, as well as attentional and executive functioning difficulties arise, resulting in behavioral and educational problems. In fact, long hospital stays and prolonged absences from school often result in these children being behind on their schoolwork. Can everyone hear me now? Yes. All right, so everyone can hear me great. So while the benefits of ICT for the education of children with a medical condition seems obvious, universal components of these KEF should guide the integration of these technologies in home and hospital education. So the KEF that we're going to be talking about are these key educational factors. These key educational factors are making sense and constructing knowledge, relationships, assuming role in front of others, metacognition, the thinking about your thinking process, individualities, so individual strategies for learning, and interinstitutional communication. This is the communication between various institutions regarding education and health of the child. These KEF were used to structure the focus groups, both the first and the second focus group, on the perception of the use of ICT for the education of children with a medical condition, but also to interpret the data. Does anyone have any questions right now about these KEF? I'll move on. So the ICT in home, hospital education, so information and communication technologies converge multiple technologies, so like writing, communication, and games that can yield enormous benefit within education. With ICT, knowledge can be gained or transferred, devoid of location. So this is important inside the home and hospital education. Can we hear me? Sorry, we have temporary problems without you once in a while. So the great thing about ICT is that, again, this knowledge can be transferred and gained, devoid of your location or time. And this is important with children who are ill. It means that they're going to be able to follow education from their classroom, even though they're not physically present in the classroom, so that students can learn wherever and whenever. And again, I want to repeat that this last thing is particularly important for children with a medical condition, for home and hospital education. By creating a virtual bridge between school and hospital, ICT can help to limit the disruption caused by the illness, helping to manage the emotions and counteract problems that can arise from them not being present in school. So ICT has a potential also, obviously, as a teaching tool. It helps the social and school integration. So going back to where we were on the communication between one of the key educational factors, the communication between the home and hospital and the mainstream school. So however, mere use of the technology and education doesn't ensure quality and process outcome. So guided by educational theory, and these educational factors, these keffs must always be taken into account and should direct technology choices. How are we doing? I have them with me, and I grab it. So the focus groups. So the focus groups were done with teachers and doctors. So the teachers were home education. So teachers that go to the home of the children who are ill and hospital education, teachers who are in the hospital, medical staff. So these are doctors and nurses, psychologists, social workers, everyone who's involved in the hospital that aids in the medical care of the child. The aim here is to understand how these educational factors relate to education of these keffs, these key educational factors, relate to the education of children with a medical condition. So basically what we did was we have this general guide for how you run a focus group. We shared them with the partners in the project and then each country ran their own focus group and then gave the information back following a report. This report matrix, the countries were Belgium, sorry. The countries were Belgium, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Spain and England. Those are the participating countries. All right, so this is the report matrix that they used. So the questions that they were asked to ask the participants of the focus group. And then they would record the responses, audio recording and then type out the actual responses inside this matrix. This matrix was then used to be analyzed by us here at the University of Perugia. And I'm going to share with you the results of what was reported back. That focus group, the first focus group, and then later the second focus group. Okay, so we got 101 doctors and teachers. We got 25 healthcare professionals and then 76 teachers. The average age of the participant was about 44 years old. 535 statements for the focus group that were entered into the matrix and then later categorized into 38 categories. So let's talk about some results. So first of all, we'll talk about the positive and negative statements. So we have the key educational factors. So what you're seeing here is a list of key educational factors. On the left hand side, relationships, making sense, assuming roles, metacognition, individualities. And then you have the, on the, going across you have the practices, the ICT, hospital, and home. So basically what you're seeing is when you see something it's in red, that tells you that it's a negative comment. And then when you see it in green, it's positive. So basically what you're seeing is that there's an overwhelming for hospital and home negative issues. And in fact, it's basically how we asked the question to participants. We actually asked the focus group participants to tell us problems they have at the hospital and home. But what's interesting is that you see here that each key educational factor was mentioned. People gave responses back for those, for each of those key educational factors. And it's interesting to note that there's specific ones that have more responses versus others. For example, individualities and assuming roles and relationships are the three, you know, the metacognition. Sorry, metacognition individualities are the two that have the most number of practices. And then ICT uses, there's two relationships, which is clear. You know, that Skype or WhatsApp can keep you in contact with the fellow students in your mainstream school. So let's dig a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper here. And the less managed CEPs with educational practices appears to be making sense and constructing reality, followed by assuming active roles for children. So essentially what I want to say here is that ICT is perceived as a great tool for making sense and constructing knowledge according to results from the first focus group. Let's look at this. So for relationships, there was 158 statements. 71 of them were positive and 65 of them were negative. Now, in our categorization process, you take the full statement and then via an inductive approach, you find a way to categorize each statement. And for the positive, most of the statements that were positive were about ICT as a learning tool. And then the negative was isolation. The fact that even though ICT can be used to improve the relationships between the child with the medical condition and the children in the home, the mainstream school, there's still a sensation of isolation. All right. So basically what I wanted to say is that it's really interesting that the solutions here, whether or not there's solutions for ICT that can be effective. So later on when we talk about the second focus group results, there's some answers that are given there. So the suggestions that we have are basically the idea that the stigma regarding the reentry into school for these children is something that needs to be actually dealt with. Are we OK? Any questions here so far? Can everyone hear me? It's not the ICT's fault that isolation cannot be overcome, is it? That's an interesting question. Maybe Michaela can answer that inside the chat directly. Great. That's a really great question. So making sense and constructing knowledge. All right, so here the, again, ICT learning tools was the most positive statement, categorization. And again, isolation was the most negative. We're starting to see a pattern here. So it's ironic here, and we mean this, that a communication technology, ICT, is not able to effectively solve a problem of isolation. The suggestion here is that the management of the educational setting in the hospital cannot be only sustained by teachers. You need to have this coordinated policy among the various players within the hospital as well as parents and then the school, the mainstream school, in order to manage the educational process. This lack of communication is probably the real problem. And in fact, we have this KEF that's specific for children with a medical condition, which is interinstitutional communication. So assuming roles. Assuming roles, again, is where you're able to take on roles that one assumes while they're learning. And here, the most positive is teamwork and the statement, the category that was the statements that were most often used for negative is interpersonal psychological factors. So this is the relationship between people, relationship between people in the school, the relationship between people, between fellow students or the teacher and the student. But basically, what I wanted to say here is that this working in this environment requires some cooperative learning. And it seems to be the choice for, allows children, these children with a medical condition, to have an active role in front of their peers. And ICT is indicated as an aid, was indicated by the people who were part of this focus group as an aid to. I think I wanted to say was that the presence of stigma and other problems related to interpersonal psychological factors indicates the need to properly prepare the education level of the recipients, including the class and teachers. Child with a medical condition belongs. Moving on to medical, metacognition. Now again, metacognition is thinking about your thinking processes. Statements that were positive, the one that was most frequent was experiential learning factors. And for the negative, it was safety. Talk about that for a second. So basically, metacognition is well connected with an experiential learning tools. So the possibility to perform, to be effective at metacognition, means interacting with other areas that are connected to the child who has medical condition. But the problem is that these things might be caused by lack of economic resources. So there's two pathways that we've suggested for the ICT. So the use of ICT as a medium for metacognition to get the children to think about their thinking processes. And then the use of ICT to facilitate the percussion of the student with other classmates. At the data for individualities, the statement that was most common for positive statements was communication. And for negative, it was assessment. Describe what that means. So the idea, again, for individualities is that there's individual strategies for learning. So here, the recognition of the individuality of this child that has a medical condition, a student has a medical condition, seems to be covered by several different processes that are involved in teaching these children. The problems that are identified seem to be related to the sharing of practices for the child that's there in the home and hospital school and the child who was and will be returning back to the mainstream school. All right. So the second, now I'm going to move on directly onto the second focus group. So the second focus group had exactly the same countries. Again, we have teachers and medical staff. Again, we have a report matrix where the data was entered. We have 74 doctors that participated. 74 doctors and teachers. 14 of them were health care professionals and 59 of them teachers. The age was roughly the same as the first focus group. We had 485 statements by the focus group participants that were again categorized as results. The categories by focus themes. So again, let me report that. Let me just reiterate this, that the first focus group collected information on the key educational factors in the home and hospital education. The second one, this one here, assessed and discussed ICT-related solutions for the education of children with a medical condition. So there's nothing on the slide. There's 278 statements were mentioned by teachers. What's interesting is that 10 ICTs were mentioned where the most common ones were email, Skype, Coin Dropbox. These were actually the technologies that were mentioned. And it's interesting that in particular that the ICTs that were mentioned were actually discussed and being used in multiple ways. This is probably obvious, but email was described as being used in six separate ways. You can see right there that it was used as a communication tool. It's obvious for sharing information, for increasing knowledge, for integration, and for as a learning tool by teachers. I'm starting to see a pattern. We're not seeing graphs. OK, I'm going to have to go back. I'm going to go forward and tell you what should be there. And thankfully, I printed this out. So the frequency of use. So frequency of use. So what you should be seeing, and you're not, because it's not showing up on Adobe, is there's a table that you have the frequency of use. And inside here, you'd see that there's multiple. So for example, there's a software called BedNet that is used almost every day. That was one of the top ICT technologies. Another one, for example, is Google Docs. That was used about 3% of all ICTs where it was Google Docs. And it was used on a daily basis. Education 365 was 10% of all the ICTs was Education 365. And that was used occasionally. So problems emerging from ICT in the home and hospital education, you should be seeing exactly a table that had problems. So the most frequent problem was technical factors. And this was about 17% of all problems was technical factors. They're followed by administration or connectivity factors, the ability of that ICT to be connected, to be used properly. Now, mentioned during the first round of focus group, isolation factors were also mentioned during the second round. So the repetition of these isolation factors helps underscore the fact that ICT, at least in its current form, is not able to resolve the fundamental issue of isolation. That happens with children with a medical condition. So ICT solutions need to take into account the fact that these children are not in their mainstream school. And no matter what an ICT can do, the positive it can do for isolation, it's still going to be part of the process that they will have this sensation of being isolated. Now, a coordinated integration between the home and hospital school is going to definitely help resolve some of these problems that we saw in this focus group. So basically what I wanted to say was also another thing was that developing ICT solutions without taking into account the psychological aspects of the child with medical condition can actually aggravate the problem. And that was something that was mentioned multiple times during this focus group. I thought it doesn't have a table. There it is. A pedagogical aspect where ICT can make a difference. You should have been seeing here the categories, which were communication information sharing, was the most frequently used listed categories. So that was 34% of the time that was listed. Software as a learning support was listed about 13%. And then increasing knowledge was a third with about 11%. So considering the results from the first round, the thing that's really interesting is that since the ICTs were perceived to be the most useful for the CAF making sense and constructing knowledge, what was found in the second round of focus group when the discussion moved to how can an ICT make a difference, it was truly ICTs are definitely a fantastic tool for creating this path, this making sense and constructing knowledge that the child needs. So without a doubt, it came through in the first focus group and was reiterated and underscored in the second focus group. Are we doing OK? Great. All right, yet another table that did not come through, but we'll enjoy this. So on this table, you should have seen the limits of ICT. Now, it's pretty obvious that one of the things that ICT cannot replace is face-to-face interaction. In fact, when the focus group, the second focus group, talked specifically about the limits of ICT, this is in fact the number one thing that was mentioned by the focus group participants, the inability to replace face-to-face interaction. And of course, the second one, since relationships are so important, since isolation is one of the things that was talked about so many times, its personal relationships was the second and that was listed about 18% of the time. So face-to-face interaction really is a crucial aspect of the educational process. It's no accident. The reality of kids who have a medical condition is where face-to-face interaction, where face-to-face interaction with peers can really make a difference. Obviously, inside the home and hospital education, inside the home, it's going to be very hard. So inside the hospital, it's a little bit easier with children who are already inside the hospital school. So the idea is that there's a stigma that's associated with their illness and that the face-to-face interactions can actually help reduce that. The second thing is that education is a system of relations. And these relations can be supported by ICT, but obviously, they can't be replaced. They can't be replaced and ICT alone cannot create these relationships. So some final thoughts to move towards the end. So the use of ICT in home and hospital education is really important. It's clear that these technologies exist in order to help improve the communication between all of the key players that are engaging for the education of these children. Now, when looking at the key role of relationships, if isolation is one of the fundamental problems, if face-to-face interaction is something that ICT can't replace, if one of the key things that ICT can make a difference is communication, then relationships is something that can't be denied. So social bonds here between the children that are in this home and hospital education is fundamentally important. Social bonds even between them and the children are in the mainstream school is important. Those can't be lost. These bonds help make the education of these children with a medical condition easier. So the problems with home and hospital education associated with ICT are clear. Too often, ICT seems to be introduced without the proper support, which includes network infrastructure, relationships, the communication between the home and hospital education and the mainstream school, equipment, assistance. So while these problems are something that must be addressed in order to actually use ICTs within a home and hospital education. So we think that the use of ICTs can help with the education of children with a medical condition, and especially when looking at the key educational factors and how important those are for the education of children with a medical condition. That is it. And I am ready to answer any of your questions that you might have, or Mikaela can answer as well. Oh yeah, right. So obviously for the, you'll see that Mikaela is going to put inside the chat here several web pages, links for web pages for the LEHO project, for the practical guide, which is a result of the three years of work that's been on LEHO, and several other tools and technologies that came out of the LEHO project. Is there any interesting narrative, comments, or success stories from your focus groups that you would like to share with us? Yeah, one of the things that was mentioned multiple times inside the focus groups was the use of Panda, our monkey in my chair. So monkey in my chair, which is actually not an ICT, technically, because there's no technology other than a monkey that's being put, Panda in my seat. Thank you. And this was, without a doubt, the one technology, one tool that was used where people had incredible success stories. The idea is that there's a Panda or a monkey or that remains in the seat, the mainstream school seat, the chair that the child would sit in. And then inside that, it's like a backpacker. And inside that, you could, the children from the mainstream school can put in notes or the teacher could put in homework assignments. And then that's delivered to the child who's either at home or in the hospital. And this was talked about several times passionately inside the focus groups as being absolutely a fantastic tool. Yeah, so Suzanne writes that this works well for the hospital school that she works with. And it's actually the only thing that children really look at, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, it was passionately talked about during the second focus group. Oh, that's interesting. They could be made more ICT by adding a memory stick with recorded things and pictures. That's really cool. I like that. And you could record audio messages. And I take pictures, put them on it. Yeah, I think so too. I think that the comment here about it's ironic that it's not an ICT solution is absolutely fantastic. Sorry, and we're back. The idea is, yeah, I think that it's really interesting because it's a vehicle that can be used. It's a physical vehicle that can be transported. And that can be like a physical manifestation of a real physical relationship. And I don't think it's any accident that it's widely used and well received. Yeah, right. And we have a couple of comments here. Let's see. Yeah, I think that's the idea of turning the pan in your seat into the e-panda. It would be interesting to see if there's a way to integrate the pan to the physical panda with this Suzanne's idea for a USB stick. And then maybe even creating a platform inside it that you can interact with. That'd be really, I think that could be really cool. No, I don't think you can touch it and feel any panda. But if you continued to have the physical panda and then created a platform that could be integrated with the physical panda, where people could write messages also in addition to the physical one, maybe it could be, yeah, exactly. Maybe it could be a really cool way to help with maintaining the calf of relationships. That's great, yeah. Yeah. Yep, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So the idea is definitely that the panda in your chair or the monkey in my chair is a way of enabling the children in the mainstream school to have a continuation. And at the same time, the child with the medical need who's in the home or hospital school then also knows that they are present. There's like a physical manifestation of presence of themselves inside the mainstream school. Yeah, I did mention Google Doc as a tool being used. And so the question is whether or not you're using a Google Docs. And that was something that was used and talked about in order to share assignments between the mainstream school and the home and hospital school. Absolutely, Google Docs is a great way to do that. I don't think that anyone mentioned one of the features that people don't use enough in Google Docs, which is the ability to physically be present on the document at exactly the same time. So you can do real time editing or real time writing inside the Google Doc. And off the top of my head, I don't think anyone mentioned it in the second focus group. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm thinking about, exactly. I mean, it's great to think about Google Doc not as a place where you can assign things and write things, but as a way where you can co-create. So I mean, one of the features that is just, again, repeat, that's fantastic about Google Doc is that you can write it exactly the same time on a document. It's completely real time editing. But no, they didn't mention that. OK, Suzanne was talking about the E-twinning project. Yeah, I think it's really interesting too that the E-twinning could have been used. And it was discussed, but it didn't really come up. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, I agree that the idea for Google Docs is, I mean, it's great when you're able to edit exactly the same document. Obviously, you never have to send it off via an attachment inside an email. But one of the great things about Google Docs is being able to meet on the document and actually talk about it and work on it the exact same time. In fact, when collaborating with colleagues, we have the document on Google Docs, and then we have a Skype call, and then we edit the document as we're having the Skype call. And it's great.  Yeah, so I agree too. So one of the problems with the E-twinning is that it takes a lot of time to coordinate. Agreed? That's true. Yeah, the Google Hangout, if you wanted to stay in Google. Exactly. Is that a switching over to Skype? Suzanne says that Google Docs works well in a work scenario, but it might be difficult to arrange the classroom setting. Yeah, I don't know. It would be interesting to test it out and see if they could actually co-create, you know, synchronously. But I don't know. I don't know if it's been used, that part of the software. Ah, exactly. So the idea is, the difficulty is arranging for the child with the medical condition to be online at the same time. Yeah, and that could be a potential problem. So maybe you are more likely to have asynchronous communication through Google Docs, you know? Yeah, Suzanne comments about the fact that it was sometimes even impossible to get online. And in fact, in some areas of the hospital, it was one of the things that came out of the focus groups. First, especially the first focus group was the technological limitations and even liability issues and even issues regarding machines working, whatever, that you had to limit access to the internet inside certain areas in the hospital. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Michela wrote that in education, sometimes less information means better concentration. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, Michela and I could probably talk a lot about this about the research in education that demonstrates that ICT in the classroom, in the regular classroom actually deteriorates learning. Yep, there's great data that demonstrates just having a computer next to you inside a classroom, not even having a computer in front of you, but having a computer next to you reduces memory for the topic that you're learning. So you're less likely to remember what was taught to you if you had a computer next to you that someone was typing on. It's not like ICT is the solution. Yep, exactly. Yep, it's not just often distracting. In my, in teaching at the university, I have written in my program, so the syllabus for the courses that they're not allowed to have computers. I don't allow computers in the classroom. I don't allow cell phones on iPads. They have to write with a pen and paper. In fact, I think Michela just put a link into an article. Yeah, I don't think it's any accident, Suzanne, that they're talking about that. It's exactly the same thing that came out of our focus groups here in Italy, that in our focus group, she says the medics talked a lot about being physically present with the children, how important that was. I mean, if relationships is the end result from the second focus group and how important relationships, and one of the limitations is the, let me fix the auto for a second. And one of the limitations for ICT is that it can't solve face-to-face interactions. You need it, so, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's not just laptop, first of all, multitasking is a disaster. And second of all, the temptations are incredible.  It stops people from paying attention. I mean, it's the point where I wonder whether or not I'm gonna use PowerPoint in my teaching if I should just stand up at a whiteboard and just write on the whiteboard that whether or not students will learn more. My student will still, Suzanne writes, my daughter will stare at a blank TV. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my firm belief is that just like when I go out to eat with my friends, the cell phones get all got stacked up on the table and we ignore them, no one's able to touch them. Yeah, I mean, I think that these devices are really useful, but they should be used in limitation. And it's really ironic that it's ironic that the technologies that the panda in your seat and the monkey in your seat, whatever, is the technology that was talked about with the most passion, with the most, it was the thing that really got people excited about. And it's not technically ICT. Yes. I think if anyone has anything else they wanna say, that's great. I'm going to be shutting down, okay? It was really a pleasure having you and thank you very much for attending. Thanks. I apologize again for the slides that didn't have the tables. I assume we'll put the slides up on the Leho webpage so you can download it and see the gorgeous tables with all the beautiful numbers. Don't worry about being late, Suzanne. Yes, don't forget to check out the Leho website. Bye-bye.


And so we need to reframe what we think of when we think about activism and social change work in a way that actually pays more attention to the little everyday interactions that we have with other people.


Okay, welcome back everyone and I've just turned on the recording for the session as well So others can listen to it Okay, before we get into the next chapter chapter nine Are there any other questions? Anybody would like to ask? Okay, we're gonna go go now to chapter nine which is on Nurturing your faith, right? So we want to talk about Nurturing our faith. So our faith Like we've said in the previous class lecture We need to constantly nurture and develop So, you know Just as an example, okay, and the Bible there's no there's no Scripture on this but just an example illustration faith can be considered like a muscle Right, because faith works, right? So muscle you need muscle to do work. So spiritually Faith can be considered like a muscle so The muscle can be developed But for the muscle to develop you need to give it the right Food the body you need to give the body right food. You need to give it the right exercise I need to give it the right rest So all three are important In order for that muscle or for muscles in the body to develop So just just an example, right? So similarly Our faith needs to be developed. It needs to be nurtured. So in this lesson, it's a very short lesson I'm just going to share some just what the Bible teaches us about nurturing our faith of how we can grow or develop in our faith and remember This we're talking about is our personal faith, right? That God has given to all of us a measure of faith Romans 12 verse 3 when we all started is given it to us but now we need to nurture that faith and a Simple example is in what we see in how Paul is writing to the Thessalonians, right? Very interesting to observe this He, you know, he commends in both his episodes first Thessalonians and also in second Thessalonians He commenced these group of believers About their faith. It really commands them, right? But at the same time he wants to help them grow in their faith Right? That's part of what he desires for them. So we can just look at these two passages of scripture Could somebody please read for us? These scripture passages first Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 2 to 4 and also verse 8 and then first Thessalonians chapter 3 Verses 9 and 10 please We give thanks to God always for you all making mention of you in our prayers Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father knowing beloved brethren your election by God Verse 8 For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place Your faith toward God has gone out So that we do not need to say anything chapter 3 verse 9 and 10 for what Thanks can we render to God for you? For all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face And perfect what is lacking in your faith Thank you so You know so paul is commanding these believers. I mean he's really very happy for them So look we're praying for you And we are remembering your work of faith So these people these believers here in this city Thessalonica this region and He says look we really appreciate your work of faith. So they're putting their faith to work. They're doing something They're expressing love through their labor their hope through their patience And their faith through their work. So he's really commanding them and he says, you know People in other places in Macedonia and Achaia They're talking about these, you know, the these people's faith in God right, so In other places people are talking about these believers and that's like us. Hey, these these believers are Wonderful. They're wonderful people of faith. They have this great faith in God They are firm in their faith, etc, etc So that's in chapter one Now just a little later in chapter three paul says, you know what we are praying for you And we want to come see your face means we want to visit you and perfect what is lacking in your faith See that Perfect mature strengthen What's lacking of it? So while he's commanding them for their faith Their work of faith and the fact that many people are talking about their faith. It's wonderful There's still more work to be done Right.  I want to come there personally I may see you and I made perfect or Mature What is lacking? Right. That means There's still more that can be done, you know to help them increase in their faith Help them strengthen in their faith right so for all of us for all of us We can constantly perfect What is lacking In our faith, right? None of us have arrived None of us are perfect. None of us, you know are These great people who can say well, uh, you know Uh, I've got perfect faith complete faith. No, uh, we are working our faith Uh, uh, our faith is producing but there it can get better It can get stronger. It can be nurtured. It can be perfected And so that is some that's something we need to be conscious about we need to be aware about and constantly work towards Nurturing our faith and perfecting our faith, right? So that's what uh, that's the focus here, right? In uh, and uh in the next episode 2nd Thessalonians 1 3 and 4 Uh, Paul writes again to the same Thessalonians Uh, somebody could read these yeah these two verses, please again 2nd Thessalonians 1 3 to 4 We are bound to thank god always for you brethren as it is fitting Because your faith grows exceedingly and the love of everyone of you all abounds toward each other So that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of god For your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure Hmm. Thank you.  You've got your faith toward god You want to perfect it you want to strengthen it? And now he's writing back. He's saying look your faith is growing You know, it's growing and uh, we are uh, we are appreciating your faith and patience And they were facing difficulties and hardships and so he's appreciating them The point I want to point, uh, you know, really Point point out is their faith grows That's how our faith can grow Right and we need to keep growing our faith so That's the focus of this chapter. It's a very simple chapter and uh, how we nurture our faith right some basic things There's nothing complicated. Actually, it's very very simple First of all, we must nurture our faith with the word of god Romans 10 17 is a scripture that we all know Says faith comes By hearing and hearing by the word of god or just an old english way of saying faith comes By hearing the word of god Right Uh, so how does faith come? We must hear the word of god. We must hear what god has spoken Right, so and and notice it is a present continuous Here ring, right? So faith comes by hearing Present continuous the word of god so How do we nurture our faith we Here or continually here continue to hear the word of god. Why because We trust god By trusting his word or We show our faith in god by having faith in his word what god has spoken God has promised this god has said this Therefore, I believe it. I have faith in it Right that word produces faith and my faith in it is my faith in god in god, so We constantly Engage with the word. I'd be Keep hearing the word so that our faith in god can be Strengthened. Let me see somebody has a question. Yes, john. You have a question, please Yeah, it was just I still don't understand where it says perfect. What is lacking your faith? I know first that's alone is nine ten is towards the end. It says perfect. What is lacking your faith? I don't understand that part Right, so So what Paul is showing us is You know our faith can grow right now, I think I think we can use an example so Did the word perfect Is There are of course different ways to look at it. One perfect is To complete to fill up to fill up. So, you know, if you think of a A glass That has a cup a cup that has water say three fourths of the way To perfect means to fill up the rest of the cup so you're adding some more So it's not full, you know three three quarters of the way So I perfect. What do I do? I fill up what's lacking, you know, fill it up top it up So that's one way to look at it Another way to look at understand the word perfect Is mature mature so The example would be that of a an 18 year old And let's say maybe a 25 year old Now an 18 year old, you know, typically by the time you're 18 you are considered a person is considered an adult as an adult 18 but There's a difference between an adult who's 18 and an adult who's say 25 because An adult who's 25 has You know, usually has a little bit more maturity. They've seen a little bit more of life. Maybe they've carried a little bit more responsibility And and and therefore Has a little bit more maturity to them. Now both are adults. Both are considered adults 18 or 25 they're legally adults But in terms of maturity, there is a difference simply because a 25 year old You know over the next seven years has carried a certain amount of responsibility Maybe they've started working a job and you know all of that and they're more mature So they would perfect and also be understood as in the sense of maturity, right? So Now In the exercise of our faith we Need the stopping up or we need this maturity to happen And that's what paul is referring to. He says I want to perfect what is lacking in your faith now We don't know exactly what in what ways This group these believers here in this one I cover lacking in their faith Whether it was they were being shaken because of the persecutions they were facing or was it because of Some of the disturbances that were happening because when you read the letter like first, there's a lot in second There are certain things paul talks about for instance. He talks about persecutions hardships He talks about the need for holiness He also talks about people who are Busy bodies were you know going around and causing This especially in chapter three of second thus long is they're causing a lot of disturbance in that community So in what way were these people Lacking in their faith exactly what paul is referring to. I don't know But you know, I'm just looking at the other things he mentions in both these letters Of the challenges the problems these people are facing and There's also another important thing he addresses is about the coming of christ that They should be ready, you know So i'm not sure in which specific area these people are being Were lacking in their faith, but he says look I need to come and help you in this way I need to really strengthen you in this way Uh But if those two examples like topping up or maturing helps Understand I hope hope it does is it okay shani or yes, it's okay. It's clear. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so So we need to constantly, you know keep growing in our faith in god And you know for different ones of us, right? There could be different things that are challenging our faith you know sometimes It could be just difficulties we are facing and hey, we need some help Sometimes it could be temptations. Everything is going great in life.  You know, all your needs are met. Everything is fine, but A believer could be hesitating to step out and do something for god So okay. Hey, you need to perfect faith in that area so that you step out and do something so for all of us Right in as we're journeying through life We need help To nurture our faith for for various things, you know, I'm not saying it always has to do with difficulty sometimes It does though. We would be facing difficulty But sometimes, you know life can be perfect. Everything is fine. You know, you have no needs all your needs are met Life is going great. You've got your health is good But then there could be The need to nurture faith in certain other aspects like like I said overcoming temptation or stepping out and doing something for god or stepping out and ministering to people You know, learning how to move in the gifts of the spirit learning how to Do different things god has called us to do so, you know, although So this nurturing of our faith doesn't always have to do with problems over difficulties It could just be that we need to grow in other areas of our Walk with god our relationship with god, right? So All of us need this continual nurturing of our faith. How do we do it first? We said We can do it by just hearing the word right and so I want to encourage us to learn to meditate in the word of god and We'll be talking about this In another course as well when we talk about hermeneutics But let me just, you know, give us in a very brief concise way how to meditate in the word of god Okay Now when we say meditation We're not talking about some eastern mysticism. No, we're not talking about that We're talking about biblical meditation, you know, the word meditate in god's is used many times in the bible, especially in the old testament and How How did they practice meditation in god's word, right? Especially if you're talking about Biblical meditation You can capture when you when you study the hebra words haga and siac You know the word haga simply means to reflect imagine matter or speak And siac simply means to ponder as well as to converse with oneself to commune toata So when you look at these two hebra words used For meditation and you want to just distill what it's saying in three english words We use the words contemplation visualization and confession Okay, so how do I meditate in god's word three simple things contemplate contemplate means to think deeply on the word of god Your attention is focused on that promise You're thinking on it contemplate contemplation second visualization I use a english word visualization. I mean you could use another word like imagine or imagination or That means you're seeing god's word fulfilled with your mind with your mind's eye right Because god created our imagination. He gave it to us and our imagination is very important because The picture we paint with our mind's eye can inspire faith It can build confidence or it can destroy us and you find this example you find this in the bible too and You know, we will talk about it in like I said in another course But this imagination is It's important So you need to see with your mind's eye the word of god being fulfilled in your life God gave you imagination. He gave us the faculty Or the ability to imagine which is to see with our mind's eye and thirdly is confession That means I must speak the word Declare the word that means put it in my mouth right because Haga and siac you'll see it means to mutter. It means to repeat words. It means to say aloud.  I'm not saying we had to do it like this I'm just saying that's generally how it was practiced, right? They would They would block out all distractions And just made it contemplate visualize confess the lord Is my shepherd? I shall not want He makes me to lie down in green pastures He leads me beside the still waters He restores my soul he Or I must forget the rest of it He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake Yay Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, right? So What are they doing? They're meditating God's word They're contemplating that means your attention is focused on the word In your mind you're seeing that word The Lord is my shepherd.   Why now your ears are hearing what your mouth is speaking and faith comes by hearing right, so You can you know open the scriptures Take a verse, you know take Jeremiah 29 11 And say okay, so I have my Bible open I'm looking at this verse I say God has said I know the thoughts I think toward you says the Lord Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope God has told me He knows thoughts that he's thinking towards me These are thoughts of peace of blessing Of well-being not of evil To give me a future and a hope Nice I declare that my God knows the thoughts he has for me thoughts of peace and well-being To give me a future and a hope This is my God So What I've done is just now I've meditated in Jeremiah 29 verse 11 just few minutes What was I doing? I was contemplating I was visualizing I was saying I was muttering I was saying just to myself What's this going to do? It's going to feed my spirit with the word of God Meditation in God's word And it's going to build my faith In God's word and I'm meditating. I'm thinking on it. It's focused God, this is what you said faith comes by hearing the word of God Okay similarly As I'm meditating as we are meditating the word what's happening is We are sowing the seed of God's word in our hearts Now Jesus taught us this in the parable of the soul. He said that the seed the word is like seed It has to be so Right. So through meditation you're putting the seed of the word into your heart and from there it's going to germinate it's going to produce Right. So hearing speaking meditating and practicing the word It's a key To nurturing our faith It's key Right. So I hear the word through meditating I speak the word to myself And we do this consistently do it over and over again and nurtures and strengthens our faith and sometimes you know, there may be Areas in our life where you want to you know, you want to go after something really specific You spend that extra time meditating in those scriptures for that Area of your life and build yourself up in that area Okay, so first first way to nurture your faith Is by hearing the word by through meditating and just putting the word in your heart I want to pause you and see that any questions. Did you Did you all understand? Okay, so clear All right, everybody's really quiet. So I'm assuming It's okay Then just just two more The next thing is be nurture our faith But I'm being part of a community of faith, right? So this is again uh a simple and important part of Being a person of faith, right? So philemon There's only one chapter in the sixth verse philemon paul writes And he says, you know, he tells the he's writing to Philemon, he says that the sharing of your faith or the fellowship of your faith It may become effective But the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus so He's talking about the fellowship of your faith Yeah, so that means my faith is not held in isolation, but there is a fellowship That means I'm having faith. There are other people around me who also have faith in God Who also have who just believe who also believe in God and believe his word As you know, we are having fellowship. We are we are sharing our faith right And How can that fellowship be effective? We must acknowledge the good things that are in us in Christ so Be a part of a community that that acknowledges the good things that are in us in Christ To acknowledge the good things right So be a part of that community And that as as you're part of those that community of believers Who are acknowledging the good things that are in us in Christ? What happens it encourages our faith because you see how another brother or another sister How that person is, uh, you know joining with faith in God and they encourage you their life Encourages you or maybe their testimony encourages you or how God does works that encourages you and it strengthens our faith Right, so being part of a community be a part of people Who acknowledge good the good things that are in us in Christ Then the fellowship of our faith becomes effective. It really strengthens our faith It's a simple thing, but yet it's a very important thing to nurture our faith and last one is Not to your faith with testimonies of faith, right? So listen to, you know, listen to people as they share their testimony Say this is how God encouraged God worked in my life and I believe God and God came through And you know, God did this and so by Testimonies of faith Our faith is also nurtured and encouraged Now, uh, Hebrew chapter 11 for example is a chapter that's full of testimonies full of you know people who walked in faith and What they were able to accomplish by faith. So we nurture our faith with the testimonies, you know of people Around us who are able to do things through faith in God and we talk about his wondrous works and we You know, we declare his mighty acts and so those By listening to that by listening to people talking about his wondrous works and Declaring his mighty acts our faith is also strengthened okay So three simple things You nurture your faith with the word of God feed your spirit with the word Be a part of a community of believers who Call out the good things that are in you in Christ Jesus Not people who are feeding you with unbelief and doubt but people who You know acknowledge the good things that are in you in Christ They're listened to testimonies of faith. So this is just a simple way to nurture our faith in God Okay All right, did we have a question? Please go ahead Yes pastor. Thank you. Uh, so my question is uh regarding being part of a community of faith uh, so if A believer is part of a community that agrees on the basic Doctrine, you know the basic gospel But They do differ in certain doctrines How should a believer Deal with that right, so You know the basic gospel everything is clear and there is no Nothing That is concerning, but if it is like regarding holy spirit and you know the extension You know that we have in the gospel. So In such cases, what what would you suggest? Be a good way Hmm Yeah, there is no, you know one straight answer in the sense Ultimately, you know each one has to Follow what God wants to do, but I'll just give my general guidance in this matter see One it is possible that you know, I could go To Church community a local church a local community believers who You know who we agree with in the basic things like we all believe in Jesus We all believe in that God of the bible the triune god we believe the scriptures are you know Inspired but They may not believe in say, you know the works of the spirit and the supernatural manifestations of the spirit and so on I mean, it's okay for you know, believer to go there as long as on his own He's able to grow and develop in those things Yeah He can manage so that kind of If a life can be managed I'm not saying it's not possible It can be managed but This believer needs expression. He needs, you know to To be able to learn more about the things of God the spirit of God and to be able to Minister and serve You know and that can happen now that should happen In the context of that local community believers or they can go and be a part of another fellowship So, you know, maybe they can compensate that way there all the in that local church They may not have room for expression. Maybe They can be being part of another bible study or another group They're the growing and so so they kind of compensate and I know, you know, sometimes some people do that It's not the ideal situation It can't be managed It's okay the ideal would be to be a part of a church where You know, like we read in philemon 1 6 You're able to flow together. You're able to grow together in all aspects of The christian faith, you know the growing the things of the spirit and that would be ideal But if that is not possible, you know for various reasons it's that's not possible Then this this is a second option where it can be managed So that in the local church, there is community and there is fellowship to the extent that people believe but For the believer at a personal level Is able to grow By engaging in other, you know other places of fellowship or risk input grow and continue to grow in the faith So that can be managed But ideal is always good if if it is possible, but in some situations it may not be possible Practically, so it's okay Okay, thank you Any other questions? Okay, so We're going to just start off on our next lesson so Chapter nine was very small simple or nurturing of faith by the word By fellowship with believers and third by listening to testimonies now we go to chapter 10 there You want to talk about how do you What is the basis for strong faith? right when you and I Want to be able to exercise faith in god We need to have a strong foundation. What is the basis for strong faith? How can you be a person? How you how can you and I Be people of strong faith. What is it that undergirds strong faith? Okay, that's what we want to talk about in chapter 10 Right, and so we're kind of getting it is all the practical things here about faith in god and how to exercise faith We will talk about it right So what is the basis for strong faith? chapter 10 Right, so the basis for strong faith Right, so in this chapter We'll mention five important foundational truths That you and I must have for strong faith Secondly, and then We're also going to talk about practices to develop strong faith. Okay, so What other foundational truths we We must be strong in to have strong faith first of all We must be established in the integrity of god's word Right If if we are not Confident that this word is truth That this word will not fail Then we cannot have strong faith so First thing to ask strong faith is hey God has spoken God said it It's going to be done Nothing can stop The word of god from being fulfilled. So we must be established in the integrity Of the word of god and the power of the word of god. It must be settled in our lives no questions Because if I doubt the word then I can't have faith in god If I question The promise of god, I can't have faith in god. I have to be established In the integrity Of god's word. So let me let me sorry Share my screen. I didn't I didn't share my screen Right, so we're going to talk about five important foundational truths and four practices, right? So the first one I must be established in the integrity of god's word Right Jesus said john 17 17 Your word is truth I must be able to say god Your word is truth. I believe it god. You said it. That's enough for me That's enough for me god. You said it So we must have this confidence, you know Things will around us will change the grass where there's a flower fades time and seasons will change But the word of god will stand Things will change but god's word will endure So we must be established number one We must be established In the integrity Of god's word, okay, we have to have this holy reverence We have to have this Absolute confidence In the holy word of god This is god's word Strong faith Is based On this truth The word of god Yes, every promise All the promises of god are yes and amen. I'm not questioning it. I'm not doubting it If it's there in the bible, it's for me If god has spoken it, it's for me. It's truth We must be established In the integrity of god's word second We must be established In christ's finished work on the cross So the cross of jesus christ Is the basis For everything we're going to receive From god Everything we're going to receive from god is because Of the cross what jesus did for us on the cross So we must be established In that Okay on the cross My sins are forgiven That power of sin is broken Jesus provided wholeness for my spirit's soul and body So I can receive healing and wholeness for my spirit's soul and body The curse has been removed blessing has been released through the cross Satan all his demonic forces have been disarmed and destroyed. I am redeemed and I'm part of god's family Right So the cross is so important because it's on the basis of the cross That we are going to receive from god So I must be very clear And I must be established In the finished work. This is done. Jesus finished the work for me on the cross Right and all these aspects that we've just kind of outlined here. We must be formally established In that The third Truth we must be established is our identity in christ That's what we are learning in the other course We have to be established in this because We have to live out of the identity in christ that Because god has given me this inheritance Because god has given me this identity I can therefore face life these situations face satan and his demons Based on that So when a believer is established in their identity, they have confidence They don't doubt, you know, they don't They can go for god boldly and ask Knowing that that's their privilege. It's their blessing It's part of their inheritance And so this is also very important You know, if you are establishing your identity in christ, you can operate out of that as you exercise faith in god in number four Must be established in the presence and power of the holy spirit That means The holy spirit does that work with me So when I'm believing god When I'm believing god for healing or believing god for deliverance or believing god for a minister or somebody I know I'm not alone You know, you're not alone The holy spirit is working through you The holy spirit is working in you And so you're established to say I know the holy spirit is going to help me I know the holy spirit is going to bring me through this and the holy spirit is going to cause the miracle to take place So you're established in that the presence by the holy spirit because that undercourts us We can have strong faith when we know what the holy spirit does in us and through us Okay and lastly number five The authority of jesus name that When we minister when we pray We're doing it in the name of jesus. What does that mean for us? You know that as we minister Look, i'm not doing it in my name I'm not doing it with the name of a church or a denomination or something like that. No, it's the name of jesus So when we are established in the authority of the name of jesus, we can have strong faith as you minister out of that name so In order to have strong faith In order to be you know, uh to be people of strong faith. Let's just review this These truths undergird strong faith. They are foundational to having strong faith in god The reviewing number one Be established in the integrity of god's word number two Be established in the finished work on the cross What jesus did for me. It's god's provision for my life I will have it No devil and no man can stop it must have that confidence number three Know your identity in christ. This is who god has made me to be This is what he has given to me I'm going to walk in it Number four the holy spirit is with me. He's my helper He's going to help me and he's going to work through me number five I've been given the authority of jesus name and so In that name As I pray or as I minister or as I ask I know It has to be done. So I'm going to pause here for today and so you see How strong faith Is undecarded By these things. So, you know when we are established in all these truths And if you look at how you know the courses are set up for us in the bible college It's really it's kind of building you up in all these areas It's building you up in the holy spirit is building you up in the word of god It's building you up in the you know in all these areas. It's kind of building you up really To give you a strong foundation So that you and I can have strong faith strong faith okay Any questions so far before we close and dismiss we'll continue this next week any questions okay Let's close in prayer Okay, did we have a question? Please go ahead Thank you. Thank you. So my question is so all these five points that were mentioned these are all You know based on God's word The name of Jesus all that God has done So I was just wondering like Is is there anything that is dependent on me as a believer Or me as a person is there anything about faith that is dependent on me Um, I would say the next part where we're going to talk about the practices So those practices are things that we do right So If we practice those things It'll help us Have strong faith So while God has done his part and he's given us, you know these all these truths for us to just cast ourselves on say God I'm just completely dependent on these truths God has provided that for us But then on the other side he says live like this, you know, you practice this So I would say those five the five practice we're going to talk about Is our our side? of this whole Having strong faith our side to having strong faith. Yeah Sure. Thank you. Buster. Yeah Good. Thank you. Everybody. Let's just close in prayer Um, can I ask somebody to please pray with us? And dismiss us anybody? You're welcome to unmute your mic And just pray with us as a class and we will dismiss please anyone Um, brother Manor would you like to Well father, thank you lord for teaching The precious truth about the faith lord how we can grow in faith nurture our faith Lord So precious are these things Help me be a wonderful father to receive it in the good heart and to Develop me for this truth may be deeply rooted in us So that it may bear much food Thank you lord for that in this privilege Thank you lord helping us through For the seed of this truth growing in our life We praise your name and thank you glory for and I address grace to every one of us for to grow perfectly in all these elements of faith nurturing Bless the pastor Bless every one of us We commit every one of us in your hand Thank you lord for making us your true children and your living witnesses in this body That may shine for you in this body In Jesus name we pray Amen. Amen. Thank you everyone We will dismiss have a good rest of the day Enjoy your day. God bless you. We'll see you again