Teaching the book and educating the person: challenges for university English language teachers in China

Recent accounts of college-level English language teaching in China describe environments that, although constrained by the College English Test (CET), are undergoing changes in a number of curriculum areas, including recognition of the need to incorporate communicative approaches and the assessment of practical language abilities. In such times, tensions between the needs and desires of society, teaching institutions, teachers and students are inevitable. In this article, we report on a study involving a group of university English teachers from across China who attended a professional development programme in Beijing in the summer of 2006. We explored the experiences of 83 teachers in their working environments, using four one-page reflective frames, which we distributed at regular intervals during the 2-week programme. Teachers described tensions between the need to achieve socially-oriented and subject-centred goals, such as passing examinations and developing communicative competence (“teaching the book”), and their desire to bring about enduring personal changes in students' awareness of themselves as learners and their approaches to learning (“educating the person”). Like colleagues in other countries and contexts, they faced ongoing challenges in trying to harmonize students' needs, curriculum obligations, and their own theories of best practice.     

Stemming the Tide of Rising School Exclusions: Problems and Possibilities

This paper argues that the New Labour government' school effectiveness/target-setting strategy for reducing school exclusions is a flawed one. It deflects blame on to individual schools for problems which have as their source more deep-seated changes both in educational policy and in the wider society. A more positive way forward is to learn lessons from the recent research literature addressing the causes of the increase in school exclusions.     

Publishers,United States foreign policy and the third world, 1960–1967

One phase of the United States government's attempts to counteract the Soviet psychological offensive in the 1960s was the forging of a partnership with U.S. publishers. Within that framework, the United States government rectified its tainted record on the international flow of information by legislating the Florence and Beirut Agreements; revised its attitude towards international copyright legislation, sorted out issues confronting the American book industry abroad, and consolidated U.S. government agencies' book activities. The aggregate activities unfolding within that banner culminated in the United States' adoption of the National Policy on International Book and Library Activities in 1967—a policy which was never fully implemented. Those 1960s initiatives constitute a framework for formulating a post-Cold War cultural relations policy. Rosemary Ntumnyuy Mokia earned a Ph.D in Library and Information Science from Indiana University. She has worked as a librarian at the University of Yaounde Library (Cameroon, West Africa) and is currently an acquisitions librarian at Grambling State University.     

Opportunity costs associated with the provision of student services: a case study of web-based lecture technology

Universities aim to provide services that are not only beneficial to students but also efficient relative to possible alternative services. Using opportunity cost, this study considers staff and student perceptions of the usefulness and valuation of web-based lecture technology (WBLT). It reveals that a quarter of students did not use WBLT while many staff members thought WBLT had a negative impact on their face-to-face teaching. Further, over a third of students sampled said they would not be affected if WBLT were not made available and many staff members felt constrained by WBLT technology. Some staff members spent a lot of time preparing WBLT while others eschewed the technology altogether. Nevertheless, a relatively small number of students place enormous value on WBLT, as do some staff, even if only simple audio of lectures are provided. The academic policy implications of this study suggest that university provision of WBLT could take into account the opportunity cost of WBLT use as a valuation-basis, possibly recovering costs through extra fees. This would allow for improved decision-making by university administrators and facilitate a move towards a useful measurement basis of WBLT. A wider academic policy implication is to consider whether all universities should produce and deliver WBLT at all and to what extent it should encourage staff to develop enhanced WBLT. Provision of sophisticated WBLT or any other service for students bears an opportunity cost in terms of less preparation by staff for face-to-face lessons or other effective teaching or research.     

Interval running with self-selected recovery: Physiology,performance, and perception

This study (1) compared the physiological responses and performance during a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) session incorporating externally regulated (ER) and self-selected (SS) recovery periods and (2) examined the psychophysiological cues underpinning SS recovery durations. Following an incremental maximal exercise test to determine maximal aerobic speed (MAS), 14 recreationally active males completed 2 HIIT sessions on a non-motorised treadmill. Participants performed 12?×?30?s running intervals at a target intensity of 105% MAS interspersed with 30?s (ER) or SS recovery periods. During SS, participants were instructed to provide themselves with sufficient recovery to complete all 12 efforts at the required intensity. A semi-structured interview was undertaken following the completion of SS. Mean recovery duration was longer during SS (51?±?15?s) compared to ER (30?±?0?s; p?d?=?1.46?±?0.46). Between-interval heart rate recovery was higher (SS: 19?±?9?b?min^?1; ER: 8?±?5?b?min^?1; p?d?=?1.43?±?0.43) and absolute time ≥90% maximal heart rate (HR_max) was lower (SS: 335?±?193?s; ER: 433?±?147?s; p?=?.075; d?=?0.52?±?0.39) during SS compared to ER. Relative time ≥105% MAS was greater during SS (90?±?6%) compared to ER (74?±?20%; p?d?=?0.87?±?0.40). Different sources of afferent information underpinned decision-making during SS. The extended durations of recovery during SS resulted in a reduced time ≥90% HR_max but enhanced time ≥105% MAS, compared with ER exercise. Differences in the afferent cue utilisation of participants likely explain the large levels of inter-individual variability observed.