A vocabulary acquisition learning activity was designed and a learning system featuring image-to-text recognition technology to support the activity was developed. The effectiveness of the system with regard to facilitating vocabulary acquisition was tested. The perceptions of learners toward this tool and the affordances of the system for vocabulary acquisition were also explored. To this end, we designed an experiment in which 40 native speakers of Russian learning English as a foreign language from an elementary school participated. They were assigned to either a control condition or an experimental condition. All learners learned new vocabulary in class and then applied their new knowledge to contexts with a realistic simulation of the real world by completing a learning task. The learners in the control group used a traditional approach (e.g. the learners learned vocabulary from corresponding pictures in a textbook), whereas the learners in the experimental group used the proposed learning system (e.g. the learners learned vocabulary using the system). A pre-test–post-test/delayed post-test design was employed to test the effectiveness of the treatment on vocabulary acquisition. Learner perceptions and perceived affordances of the system for vocabulary acquisition were explored through a questionnaire survey and interviews. The quantitative results showed that the learners in the experimental group outperformed their counterparts on both the vocabulary post-test and delayed post-test. The qualitative results revealed that most learners in the experimental group had positive perceptions of the system. In addition, the qualitative results showed the three main categories of affordances. Based on these results, several suggestions and implications are provided for the teaching and research community.

Historians have used a number of political, social, and other factors to explain the controversy surrounding elementary education in Victorian Britain. This article underscores the importance of religious motivations. The Act of 1870 – a significant extension of state responsibility – did not end debates about the purpose of education and the pros and cons of government involvement and religious instruction. Prominent among voluntaryists and anti-secularists was A. J. Beresford Hope, whose position offers useful insights into the educational agencies of the Church and the manner in which churchmen responded to new circumstances. This article explains Hope’s attitude and uses it to explore some of the causes and consequences of the Act of 1870. What type of schooling best suited the British people? Should it have a basis in something other than religion? How could the Church and its supporters meet the challenges posed by education reform?

We clarify the different effects of elementary and higher education on human capital accumulation and inequality. The productivity of elementary education plays a significant role in the widening of inequality regardless of the existence of multiple steady states. When the productivity of elementary education is low, the poor cannot afford higher education in the long run because the demand for education by the rich makes the price of education too high for the poor. However, the effect of its productivity on the attainable education level is ambiguous. A rise in the productivity of higher education always increases the education level.