Reflections on outdoor education and English ‘Indigenous Organic Fascism’ in the 1930s

The 1930s in England saw the emergence of what has been called an ‘Indigenous Organic Fascism’. This ideology was based on deeply articulated concerns for both the natural environment and a perceived threat to a cultural and spiritual connection to the land. This article reviews these perspectives and explores the ideas of English Fascism for a rural and thereby cultural revival. The article reviews how such environmental concerns became practically expressed in a range of enterprises in outdoor engagement with young people in an attempt to counter the desultory effects of capitalism and urbanisation. Some initiatives were based on summer camps with regular organised activities; others sought to promote deeper, spiritual connections to the natural environment. It is suggested that how such an intolerant and elitist ideology came to see such deep connections to the environment as central to their articulation may be of interest to contemporary practice in outdoor learning and that critical reflection, review and interrogation of some of the terms we use is a way of safeguarding unintentional misinterpretation in uncertain times.     

Changing the English Classroom: When Large-scale ‘Common’ Testing Meets Secondary Curriculum and Instruction in the United States

This article explores the intersection of new, large-scale standards-based testing, teacher accountability policy, and secondary curriculum and instruction in the United States. Two federally funded consortia – the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Readiness of College and Careers – prove focal to this paper, as these two organisations are creating new tests that will assess 42–49% of the K–12 student population in the United States in 2014–2015. Because greater teacher accountability for student performance will be given for these tests, there is more reason to pay attention to what these tests measure and what they do not. Our analysis suggests that these new tests will hold secondary English teachers accountable for literacy and disciplinary knowledge outside the field of English and thus raise important questions about what English teachers should, can and will do, especially when their jobs are on the line.     

‘He’s from Ghana!’ Exploring the Social and Cultural Complexities of the English Classroom

This essay focuses on my experience studying Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English with Year 9 and the complexities of that particular classroom. It seeks to look beyond the labels that are often imposed on students and to show the importance of examining the particular individuals, both as learners and as people with their own lives outside school. It considers text choice and illustrates how pupils’ cultural and historical backgrounds can play a key role in the social nature of the classroom. It also shows how significant class discussions can be in the development of ideas about literature. The essay then goes on to look at ability judgements and how these can affect learning, considering the value of setting versus mixed-ability grouping.     

The Teacher’s Language in English Classroom

English teaching is a process of language activity in which languageis the main teaching aid used by the teacher in the classroom.Languageof the teacher may facilitate or interfere with the teaching effects.This is a problem that shnould be taken into consideration.As we know,an English teacher is the unique English speaker whom the studets can imitale,the builder of the communicative environment in which the studente     

Criticism on the Critical Approaches in J. Hillis Miller’s Fiction and Rep-etition:Seven English Novels

Fiction and Repetition is and will remain a distinguished deconstructionist guide of literary criticism. However, after de?tailed and systematic research, I also find some shortcomings in this importan...     

‘In-between’ Asia and Australia: on the politics of teaching English as the ‘Other’

This article mobilizes story-telling to narrate my lived experience of teaching English as a minority academic in one Australian university. Positioning myself as living ‘in-between’ two cultures and as an ‘Other’, I tell my story of how I have been ‘racialized’ and ‘Othered’ because I do not look White, and my spoken English is distinctly accented; hence, my legitimacy of teaching English is held suspect. My story contributes to the theorizing of the sociology of the in-between with the argument that while living in-between culture can be a space of negativity, it can also be a space of empowerment if one exercises choice and agency by forging new spaces. I end my story-telling with a happy ending by presenting a contrasting story of how my run-away from Australia to (a new space in) Hong Kong to teach English has reaffirmed my cultural capital as I morph into a different ‘Other’.     

Reflections on the ‘site of struggle’: girls' experience of secondary education in the late 1950s

Brian Simon’s Studies in the History of Education, 1780–1870, published in 1960, set out to counter nearly all work previously produced on the history of education in Britain in this period, and to direct the field towards a new course. It provided a Marxist perspective that drew upon Simon’s involvement in campaigns for educational reform over the previous decade. It also reflected the character of the Cold War in the academy in Britain at this time. Overall, it produced a form of people’s history that was shaped by politics and ideology and informed by Simon’s leading position in the British Communist Party. His work in this period marks him out as a highly significant Marxist historian, as well as one of the leading Marxist educators of his generation.     

Reflections on Women’s Fate in Lawrence’s Works

In most of Lawrence’s works, many heroines are wrapped up in misfortunate clothes, either they have bad marriages or sufferthe loss of their husbands or commit suicide. It seems that Lawrence intends to appeal to the public to attach more emphasis on women’smiserable situations by depicting these women characters, and meanwhile, he shows his own sympathy for their suffering and he also tries toawaken them to struggle for their happiness and their freedom as well.     

‘To teach the natives English’: James Pope’s 1880 native schools code

From their inception in New Zealand in 1816, until the end of the century in some cases, most mission schools in the colony maintained instruction solely in the Māori language. However, from the 1840s, successive colonial governments promoted a secular schooling system in which English would be the language in which students were taught, principally because Māori was seen as an impediment to the governments’ assimilationist ideology. The 1880 Native Schools Code, devised by the first Inspector of New Zealand’s Native Schools, James Pope, was one of the final major steps in this era in advancing this assimilationist ideal through the country’s education system. Pope’s initiative was partly a continuation of state policy that had existed in some form since the 1840s, but it also served as the most explicit statement to that time of how the government intended to use schooling to incorporate Māori into colonial society.     

Reflections on Peter Slezak and the ’Sociology of Scientific Knowledge‘

The paper examines central parts of the first of two papers in this journal by Peter Slezak criticising sociology of scientific knowledge and also considers, independently, some of the main philosophical issues raised by the sociologists of science, in particular David Bloor. The general conclusion is that each account alludes to different and crucial aspects of the nature of knowledge without, severally or jointly, being able to theorise them adequately. The appendix contains epistemological theses central to a more adequate theory of scientific knowledge.... our Histories of six Thousand Moons make no Mention of any other, than the two great Empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu. Which mighty Powers have ... been engaged in a most obstinate War for six and thirty Moons past. It began upon the following Occasion. It is allowed on all Hands, that the primitive Way of breaking Eggs before we eat them, was upon the larger End: But ... the Emperor [of Lilliput] ... published an Edict, commanding all his Subjects, upon great Penalties, to break the smaller End of their Eggs. The People so resented this Law, that ... there have been six Rebellions raised on that Account ... These civil Commotions were constantly fomented by the Monarchs of Blefuscu ... It is computed, that eleven Thousand have, at several Times, suffered Death, rather than break Eggs at the smaller End. Many hundred large Volumes have published upon this Controversy ...     

Teacher’s Role in Students’Group Work in College English Classroom

The implementation of group work in China is aroused by the teaching reform and proposal of the New Curriculum Standard, in order to improve the language teaching and learning. However, in many cases group work is far less effective and desirable than it should have been. The effectiveness of group work depends on many factors in real language classroom setting. This paper mainly focuses on the factor of teacher’s role. The main implication of this paper is to suggest the appropriate teacher role in students’group work and put forward some skills in organizing group work in order to make group work more effective and significant.     

Examining Boys’ Readings of Gender in the English Classroom

As an opinionated and often challenging class of year 10 boys, they demonstrated a strong sense of their identity as a group of ‘bright boys’. One of their English teachers described the class as ‘boisterous, but very motivated – they love discussing texts’, but she also recognised their tendency to ‘descend into testosterone fuelled competitiveness’. I became interested in the ways these boys read and responded to literature and in particular how their strong view of themselves as ‘bright boys’ influenced their reading of gender in literature. I examine two lessons with this year 10 class in which they discussed representations of gender in two literary texts. I was interested in the ways they constructed and asserted their masculine identities through class discussions about gender in literature and I found myself wondering: how do these boys read gender, and why do they read gender in these ways?     

Nature,the Source of William Wordsworth’s Inspiration

William Wordsworth has been considered a great Romantic poet in English literature.His thoughts and poems have been researched by literary critics from different aspects.This paper argues that nature is the source of his inspiration by analyzing the background of the poet’s life and his famous poems.     

An Analysis of Senior High School English Teacher’s Classroom Discourse: from the Perspective of CDA

The study of the English teachers’ language in the L2 classrooms is a very important branch of discourse analysis. However, up till now, much of the research conducted has focused on the linguistic features of teachers’ classroom discourse. In present study, a critical point of view is adopted to analyze the social and cultural aspects of the classroom discourse. With the help of CDA (critical discourse analy sis), the relationship between language, power and ideology is deeply explored.     

‘Coherence at Last’: Percival Gurrey’s Contribution to English

Reacting to incoherent English teaching in the 1930s, Percival Gurrey probed the psychological processes involved in literary appreciation. He sought ways of teaching poetry that avoided lifeless tasks such as labelling ‘poetic devices’. Later, in the 1950s, he wrote about the processes involved in learning to write. At a time when psychology dominated educational discourse, he was in touch with new developments in both literary criticism and linguistics, and he evolved a bridging theory of language, learning and development that spanned philosophy, psychology and literary theory. I connect Gurrey’s sense of wholeness of response to his reading in Coleridge. By returning to debates surrounding Coleridge I show how a new appreciation of what language accomplishes emerged. Gurrey discovered that writing has a central place in children’s development as a whole. From such hard-won discoveries a unified theory of development in talking, reading and writing duly emerged.     

Everyone's a Criminal? Reflections on Critical Reading in the Primary Classroom

Calls for children to be taught to read critically become ever louder. This article asks what teaching for critical reading might look like in the primary school. It presents accounts of two group reading lessons from a Year 3 classroom. It examines the interactions that take place: the questioning of the teachers and the responses of the children. It suggests that where children are given the power to make meaning for themselves, they are more likely to learn to read critically than those who are not.