英语词缀法——提高英语阅读速度的重要方法

词汇量少是提高英语阅读速度的一个障碍。通过英语词缀法来记忆单词、扩大词汇量是最科学、最有效果的方法之一。但是在掌握这种方法过程中存在一定的困难。文章分析了这些困难,试图找出问题的所在及解决办法,来帮助学习者提高英语学习的效率。     

The Integration of Personal Learning Environments & Open Network Learning Environments

Learning management systems traditionally provide structures to guide online learners to achieve their learning goals. Web 2.0 technology empowers learners to create, share, and organize their personal learning environments in open network environments; and allows learners to engage in social networking and collaborating activities. Advanced networking mechanisms, UGC, flat-structured architectures, RSS, and social tagging, permit online learners to define their own learning structures. This article reports an online course built within multiple Web 2.0 technologies designed to empower learners to construct their own personal learning environments within open network learning environments. Lessons learned, examples, and critical issues are discussed. This paper concludes that effective instructions should prepare “online” learners to become “network” or “open network” learners.     

中国式英语在语法方面错误的表现及原因分析

中国式英语是以中文为母语的英语学习者在英语学习过程中造成的一种中介语现象,在语音、词汇、语法、语篇等各个层次都有所体现。就语法方面而言,英汉在语法形态和句法方面的巨大差异给中国学习者带来了很大困难,但这些语法上的困难是学习者完全可以克服的。     

Helping Eastern students to master Western critical thinking

It is possible that some of the problems that confront Eastern learners when they are asked to engage in critical thinking come from the misleading association of the title with criticising negatively and even with disagreeing. In some other educational situations, careful choice of first language titles for concepts so that they do not introduce difficulties for learners has proved fruitful in easing acquaintance with a new concept. Since the definitions of critical thinking emphasise the central role of reasoning in this process and make no explicit mention of disagreement or fault finding, there seems potential in a pedagogical approach to the development of the ability for critical thinking which focuses on identifying, considering and presenting reasons—and perhaps renaming the process, even if only temporarily, accordingly. Such an approach has been devised, in response to the difficulties that Taiwanese students have met when engaging with critical thinking. It has been piloted on one class in an online discussion forum in English as a Foreign Language. The outcomes of this pilot are encouraging and are presented at this stage for that reason.     

Teacher support,growth language mindset,and academic engagement: The mediating role of L2 grit

Engagement as an essential factor for active and meaningful learning of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) is affected by both learner external (e.g., teacher support) and internal (e.g., growth language mindset and L2 grit) factors. This study examined the relationship between perceived teacher support, growth language mindset, and academic engagement by considering the mediating role of L2 grit. The participants were 295 Iranian EFL learners selected via multi-stage cluster sampling. The SEM results indicated that perceived teacher support and growth language mindset directly and positively predicted academic engagement. Additionally, L2 grit mediated the relationships ‘between perceived teacher support and academic engagement’ and ‘between growth language mindset and academic engagement’. EFL learners receiving more teacher support and endorsing higher levels of growth language mindset can successfully overcome failures and difficulties in their learning process by showing more persistence in dealing with challenges and sustaining their interest, which could considerably enhance their engagement in learning.     

Facebook for supervision? Research education shaped by the structural properties of a social media space

This study analyses the use of a group space on the social networking site Facebook as a way to facilitate research supervision for teams of learners. Borrowing Lee’s framework for research supervision, the goal was to understand how supervision and learning was achieved in, and shaped by, the properties of a social networking space. For this purpose, the discourse between supervisor and learners was analysed along with the structural properties afforded by the space. Using the empirical findings and further literature, a conceptual framework was developed that illustrates the ways in which functional supervision, enculturation, emancipation, critical thinking and relationship development are achieved and formed by the interplay of the technological, functional, multimodal and the wider sociocultural, political and sociolinguistic structures associated with social media space.     

Challenges and issues in designing inquiry on the Web

The purpose of this study is to discuss major issues in designing inquiries on the web. Instructional designers face a lot of difficulties and challenges to deal with in the course of designing inquiry experiences for learners in the online environment, a complex and ill‐structured learning environment. Facilitating inquiry or using an inquiry‐based learning approach on the web has both advantages and disadvantages. Instructional designers need to acknowledge the design issues arising in each and every phase of the design process. Utilising appropriate design strategies, instructional designers can provide positive learning experiences for their online learners. For this purpose, three representative cases in the context of teacher professional development were examined and six major issues were identified as follows: (1) seeking a balance between a system‐generated guide and human facilitator, (2) visual representation of the inquiry process, (3) motivating learners with the right question, (4) engaging learners in various learning activities, (5) guiding the inquiry process with various scaffolds, and (6) maximising learning by coordinating resources, tools and the community of inquiry. This study explains each issue in great detail and provides possible guides for instructional designers to handle the issue.     

中国学生英语语言学习中的常见困难及应对措施

本文旨在运用应用语言学“错误分析”的理论观点,归纳出中国学生在汉语为母语的背景下学习英语时常犯的语言错误,进而找出他们的常见的学习困难,并在语言学和应用语言学、外语教学法和心理学观点导向下就如何克服这些困难提出了笔者自己的观点。     

What is ‘educational support’ for youth in social difficulties?: A qualitative study of support groups for literacy learning in Japan

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the actual conditions of youth in social difficulties in Japan and to examine the characteristics and meanings of ‘educational support’ for them from the viewpoint of literacy theory as a social practice. My colleagues and I carried out a four-year qualitative study of several private groups supporting young people from 2012 to 2015. In this study, we visited the groups and conducted semi-structured interviews with young learners (aged from 16 to 23) and their supporters. It became clear during the interviews that most young learners had not received sufficient basic education because of their delinquency or truancy, and they had had very few opportunities to build relationships of trust with those around them. The elements of the support that is needed are clarified in this study as follows: (1) building relationships of trust with young learners, (2) nurturing learners’ motivation and/or self-confidence, (3) emphasizing learners’ ideas, interests and literacies embedded in their everyday lives. These points show that ‘educational support’ for youth in social difficulties should by no means only be about the transmission of skills or fragmentary knowledge, but also the cultivation of motivation for learning and/or self-confidence based on relationships of trust.     

英语暗喻的认识、理解与教学

暗喻是一种常见的语言表达形式，是一种生动的语体。但由于暗喻表示的是一种与字面意义完全不同的概念，这对把英语作为外语来学习的人来说就构成了理解上的困难。本文从认知科学入手，对暗喻的构成、理解方式以及如何施教进行探讨。     

中国学生难以习得英语时态的原因及对策探析——基于补缺假说的视角

时态是中国学生学习英语时经常碰到的困难之一。本文从补缺假说的角度重新审视了中国学生习得英语时态的过程,指出造成这一困难主要是由于英语语境的缺乏,导致汉语语境介入补缺并由此激活中国学生头脑中固有的汉语时态表达式,造成迁移。我们认为,英语时态教学应在强化英汉语时态表达式区别的基础上尽量向学习者输入不含时间状语的英语句子以培养其语境意识;同时适当补进英语语境知识,阻断汉语语境介入的途径,避免迁移的发生。     

Learner Outcomes in Science in South Africa: Role of the Nature of Learner Difficulties with the Language for Learning and Teaching Science

Paul Leslie Gardner pioneered the study of student difficulties with everyday words presented in the science context (Gardner 1971); several similarly designed studies (e.g. Cassels and Johnstone 1985; Tao in Research in Science Education, 24, 322–330, 1994; Farell and Ventura in Language and Education, 12(4), 243–254, 1998; Childs and O’Farell in Chemistry Education: Research and Practice, 4(3), 233–247, 2003) have since been reported in literature. This article draws from an exploratory study of the difficulties South African High School physical science learners encounter with everyday English words when presented in the science context. The participants (1107 learners and 35 respective physical science teachers) were drawn from 35 public secondary schools in Johannesburg area of South Africa. Data were obtained through a word test to participant learners followed by group interviews but face-to-face interviews with each physical science teacher. This study has revealed that in similar ways as have been reported in each of the studies so far, South African learners also face difficulties with meanings of everyday words presented in a science context. The main source of difficulties encountered was learner inability to distinguish between the meanings of familiar everyday words as used in everyday parlance from the ‘new’ meanings of the same everyday words when used in the science context. Interpretations of learner interview responses revealed that fewer difficulties would have been experienced by learners if science teachers generally explained the context meanings of the words as used during science teaching. The findings suggest that focusing on contextual proficiency more than on general proficiency in the language of learning and teaching (LOLT) during teaching perhaps holds more promise for enhanced learning and achievement in science. Steps necessary to raise teacher awareness of the potential impact of context on meanings of everyday words of the LOLT are discussed. This article stands as an evidence-led discussion of the issues around the language-related difficulties that learners in South Africa may encounter as they learn school science.     

关于现代远程教育学习者对学习支持服务需求的调查分析

本文以中南大学网络教育学院2006年专升本应届毕业生为研究对象,设计了网上问卷调查以收集现代远程教育学习者对学习支持服务需求的相关数据,通过数据分析,我们对学习者进入现代远程教育学习之后的困难及需求有了一个比较清楚的认识。针对存在的问题,本文提出了相应的建议和对策,以期望学习支持服务能真正满足学习者个性化的自主学习需要。     

Science and Society‐‐a Report on Science Education Activities Organized and Co‐ordinated by the Council of Europe

This study explores the tension between subject knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge in primary teacher education. It documents students and in-service teachers learning about forces within the context of floating and sinking. In doing so it describes not only significant features of the learning process itself but also examines subject specific aspects of learning, identifying some of the inherent difficulties for learners within this domain and demonstrating how learners construct links between tacit knowledge and abstract scientific notions. Implications for teacher education and the teaching of science in the classroom are explored.     

Growth in reading-related skills of language minority learners and their classmates: more evidence for early identification and intervention

This longitudinal study investigated growth in reading-related skills between Grade 1 and 4 for language minority (LM) learners and their native English-speaking classmates from similarly low socioeconomic backgrounds (N = 166). Growth trajectories were compared by language background and by Grade 4 reading difficulties, with the goal of informing decisions about how early LM learners can undergo screening for risk of reading difficulties. As a group, LM learners demonstrated weaknesses in vocabulary and oral comprehension and strengths in phonological awareness that were apparent in Grade 1 and consistent through Grade 4. LM learners also demonstrated early strengths in letter-word identification but fell far below national norms by Grade 4. The subset of LM learners with word reading difficulties demonstrated major weaknesses in vocabulary, oral comprehension, phonological awareness, and working memory, whereas LM learners with specific reading comprehension difficulties demonstrated major weaknesses in vocabulary and oral comprehension; these weaknesses were apparent in Grade 1 and consistent through Grade 4, suggesting the importance of early assessment and intervention.     

从中西思维差异看英语学习

不同的社会文化背景决定了语言的表达方式。文化差异导致思维差异的存在使英语学习者在英语学习过程中造成误解或发生错误。文章通过讨论思维差异对英语学习的影响并提出解决办法,以帮助英语学习者更有效地学习英语。     

从中西思维差异看英语学习

不同的社会文化背景决定了语言的表达方式。文化差异导致思维差异的存在使英语学习者在英语学习过程中造成误解或发生错误。文章通过讨论思维差异对英语学习的影响并提出解决办法,以帮助英语学习者更有效地学习英语。     

声乐学习过程中的不良心态分析与调整

对于声乐学习者来说。学习心态对学习效果有直接的影响。因为在在声乐学习过程中,大部分人都有这样或那样的不良心态,如若不能及时调整和校正,将会严重阻碍声乐学习的进程。文章结合教学实践及调查研究,对声乐学习过程中非常典型的三种不良心态进行了分析与论证,从产生原因、表现形式、校正方法等方面对每一种心态进行了具体分析,希望对声乐学习过程中有心理困惑或障碍的朋友们有所帮助。