Learning Chinese characters via mobile technology in a primary school classroom

This paper describes a project, including the design, development, and use of a mobile application (referred to as application hereafter) for learning Chinese as a second language in a bilingual primary school. The application was designed for iPod Touch Apple technology with the purpose to facilitate learning of a fundamental set of 200 Chinese characters. The project was a coordinated effort of experts, including an instructional designer, a software engineer, a Chinese language expert, and classroom teachers to develop an experimental Chinese character learning application for the primary school classroom. This paper reports how the project team explored experiences of teachers and learners in a particular context, developed understanding of teaching and learning needs for Chinese language learning, and how these inform design of the educational application. The final outcomes of the project include a Chinese character learning application and recommendations for design and use of educational applications in Chinese language teaching and other similar contexts.     

美国南卡鲍勃琼斯大学汉语教学——科技手段在汉语教学中的作用

本文旨在指出在对外汉语教学的课堂内外,综合运用科技手段开展教学的迫切性和重要性,以及利用科技可以提高对外汉语教学的效率和教学效果。随着电脑和互联网的迅猛发展,尤其是美国苹果公司的iPhone第4代席卷全球,人们的生活、工作和学习,各个方面都进入了一个崭新而又颇有挑战的新时期。如何更好地利用数码电子工具是对外汉语教学成功的关键。本文将举例说明目前在海外,尤其是在美国南卡鲍勃琼斯大学,对外汉语教学中常用的一些教育科技软件及其在教学上的综合应用,包括对外汉语老师如何可以在课堂内外有效利用科技采增强听、说、读和写四项汉语技能。     

Elementary Teachers’ Perception of Language Issues in Science Classrooms

Although the importance of language in science learning has been widely recognized by researchers, there is limited research on how science teachers perceive the roles that language plays in science classrooms. As part of an intervention design project that aimed to enhance teachers’ capacity to address the language demands of science, interview data (N = 9) were collected to understand teachers’ perceptions and experiences with a wide range of issues related to language use in science classrooms. Adopting an interpretive approach to qualitative data, the analysis revealed that the teachers perceive a wide range of student difficulties related to language use in science classrooms, especially to the use of specialized terms and writing. Although the teachers are keenly aware of how language can be a barrier to learning science, they are less certain as to what students need to know about the language of science in order to master it. The findings suggested professional support that highlights the distinctive language demands of science and how these demands differ from other subject areas could be useful to these elementary school teachers.     

Understanding teachers with extreme individual learning differences: developing more effective teachers

Three teachers, who held extreme preferences for the ways they learn, participated in a year‐long professional development course, designed to sensitize teachers to their own and colleagues’ individual learning differences (ILDs). The case study focuses on their extreme learning preferences and discusses the impact of these preferences on their language, beliefs and practice, both before and after the course. The teachers’ learning preferences were determined from their scores on seven learning/cognitive styles tools and understood further from field notes, interviews and pre‐/post‐test responses. The study suggests that teachers with extreme learning preferences tend to: (a) teach the way they prefer to learn; (b) overgeneralize and project their own learning needs onto students; and (c) hold initial pathognomonic (“blame the learner”) beliefs about students mismatched to them. After the course, the teachers changed their language, beliefs and practice in the direction of becoming more effective teachers, e.g., they held more interventionist beliefs (“I can intervene to help the learner”). The three teachers were strong prototypes who can provide insights about the importance of ILDs in learning, practice and professional development.     

Redefining professional identity: the voice of a language teacher in a context of collaborative learning

Following a narrative and biographic approach, in this study, we present the case of an in-service language teacher and her professional learning trajectory in the context of the project ‘Languages and education: constructing and sharing training’. This project aimed at the construction of a collaborative teacher education context for learning and transformation of experiences, views and practices in language education, and involved teachers, teacher educators and researchers. Based on a single case study, the analysis tries to disclose the teacher’s discursive displacements as hints of professional transformation while she reinterprets the learning taking place in the collaborative education process. The signs of change are visible in the way she constructs meanings regarding her professional identity, re-identifies her mission as a language teacher and reconsiders her professional identity. Finally, we reflect upon how collaborative teacher education scenarios may foster teachers’ personal professional learning and renewed self-images.     

Changing the English language curriculum in Brunei Darussalam

This paper describes the development of a language project in Brunei Darussalam, a project aimed at improving English language learning and fostering positive reading interests. In-service teachers were trained to change from traditional textbook-based techniques to an activity-based approach integrating the practice of aural-oral and writing skills. The major components of project implementation will be discussed to demonstrate the optimization of available resources, particularly available expertise in teacher skill and language competence. This project provides an interesting example of an attempt to satisfy the practical demands of policy-makers while adhering to research standards of evaluation studies.     

A School Responds to Controversial Student Speech: Serious Questions in Light of Columbine

The evolution of a writing project in a language arts methods course provided the author, a teacher educator, an opportunity to reformat a writing assignment so that students would be encouraged to write for an authentic audience. The author reflects on a series of changes made to a writing project assigned as part of a language arts methods course, from integrating writing and technology to creating a high-option writing project. The lesson learned and relearned is important for all teachers to put into practice.     

Improving Science and Literacy Learning for English Language Learners: Evidence from a Pre-service Teacher Preparation Intervention

This paper present findings from a pre-service teacher development project that prepared novice teachers to promote English language and literacy development with inquiry-based science through a modified elementary science methods course and professional development for cooperating teachers. To study the project’s impact on student learning, we administered a pre and post assessment to students (N = 191) of nine first year elementary teachers (grades 3 through 6) who experienced the intervention and who taught a common science unit. Preliminary results indicate that (1) student learning improved across all categories (science concepts, writing, and vocabulary)—although the effect varied by category, and (2) English Language Learner (ELL) learning gains were on par with non-ELLs, with differences across proficiency levels for vocabulary gain scores. These results warrant further analyses to understand the extent to which the intervention improved teacher practice and student learning. This study confirms the findings of previous research that the integration of science language and literacy practices can improve ELL achievement in science concepts, writing and vocabulary. In addition, the study indicates that it is possible to begin to link the practices taught in pre-service teacher preparation to novice teacher practice and student learning outcomes.     

Visual Culture in the Elementary-School Classroom: Moving from Box-Store Commodities to Out-of-the-Box Thinking

The goal of the action research project on visual culture is to contribute to the dialogue on the exploratory ecology vs commodity culture of the elementary school classroom. Exploratory culture, unlike commodity culture, applauds open-ended thinking, inchoate imaginings, and critical thinking with its attachment to divergent paths to resolving problems. This educational action research project moves to effect change, so as to a) understand visual culture as an educational component of teaching and learning, and b) awaken the need for the inclusion of research on visual culture in student teacher preparation. Visual culture can best be understood when preservice teachers are immersed in the classroom. The visual landscape of the walls, light, air, hallways, seating arrangements, posters, rugs, room dividers, windows, entrances and exits of the classroom and school building can all be seen as a third teacher. The action research focuses on core classroom experiences revealed through six student teachers weekly reflections, post observation discussions, and interdisciplinary arts-infused lesson planning and facilitation. Engaging in lesson planning and implementation has shown to broaden student teachers’ understanding of meaning-making through the visual, the essence of visual culture. The student teachers described the dynamic synergy between language and visual arts teaching and learning, personalization of technology that can extend learning, and the role of imagination in the movable landscape of the classroom.     

课堂教学环境下自主学习理念的有效实施

自主学习是当代教育的目标。自主学习的理念,信息技术与语言的整合引发了语言教学的革命,但是技术手段永远也取代不了人的作用。文章阐述了课堂教学环境下自主学习研究的意义及自主学习的现状;提出了教师是学生自主学习由可能性向现实性转变的关键因素;论述了教师必须确立学习先进的外语教学理论、掌握现代教育技术的理念,高层次的理念促使课程创新成为自觉行动;教师的教学内容应注重情感因素和策略教学,保证自主学习理念的有效实施。     

Promoting interculturalism in primary school children through the development of encountering skills: a case study in two Finnish schools

The present article introduces diversity (educational, social and multicultural) of children as a resource in language teaching. Two English teachers with a total of 105 children of their language classes participated in the teaching experiment that was part of a nationwide research and development project in Finland. The aim was to develop conceptions and practices of intercultural language education and transform language curricula based on them. With the support of university researchers, the teachers experimented, reflected on, evaluated and developed such pedagogic action – pedagogy of intercultural encounters – through which they could meet the challenges of diversity in their classrooms. Good practices in teaching intercultural encountering skills were developed and seen essential for promoting identity development in language learning. Based on regular seminars where teachers' reports on their progress were discussed, reflected on and theoretically analysed, the teachers and researchers suggested justified improvements for language curricula.     

Present Research on the Flipped Classroom and Potential Tools for the EFL Classroom

ABSTRACT

The flipped classroom can support the implementation of a communicative, student-centered learning environment in the English as a foreign language classroom. Unfortunately, there is little research which supports the incorporation of flipped learning in the English as a foreign language classroom. Numerous studies have focused on flipped learning and other subject areas, but more research needs to be done on the English as a foreign language classroom. With this in mind, there are many effective tools available to enable teachers to create a communicative, English as a foreign language learning environment. Even though technology is constantly changing, the tools presented here will give teachers an idea of how to incorporate and use technology when developing an active, communicative learning environment.     

民族地区新建地方本科院校外语教师对TELL的态度研究——以凯里学院为例

随着信息技术及网络化的加快,传统单一的计算机辅助语言学习（CALL）已不能适应新技术的要求,技术促进语言学习（TELL）成为当前语言教学的必然。教师对TELL的态度直接影响着外语教学质量。文章以应用语言学的相关理论为基础,以凯里学院39名外语教师为研究对象,采用问卷调查和访谈,对外语教师对TELL的态度进行分析,探索外语教师在TELL坏境下的教学态度,找出TELL在民族地区新建地方本科院校实施或普及过程中存在的具体问题,并提出相应的解决措施和建议。     

The design of tasks in support of teachers’ development of coherent mathematical meanings

We examine the role of tasks that have the intended effect of teachers re-conceiving the mathematics they teach as comprising a coherent body of meaningful ideas. We ground our discussion in ideas of trigonometry and modular functions and draw from a professional development research project to illustrate our approach. In this project, many teachers experienced dissonance that was rooted in their commitments to their curricular knowledge of trigonometry. Teachers who built new meanings into a coherent whole were those who coordinated them at a micro level. Teachers who saw implications of their own reasoning for student learning were also successful at expressing that reasoning in natural language. We saw a similar pattern in the case of teachers' creation of meanings for action and process conceptions of mod(f(x),g(x)). Teachers who gained insight into implications of their own activities for student learning were the teachers who reasoned at a micro level in regard to the meaning of mod, who coordinated that meaning with a covariational perspective on the behavior of functions, and who expressed that coordination in natural language. We conclude that a primary feature of tasks that promote teachers' construction of coherent mathematical meanings is that they support an overall effort to have teachers engage in the coordination of meanings in the context of explaining significant ideas and relationships.     

Transitions in the representation and implementation of a language-learning project within a multicultural context

European Journal of Psychology of Education - The paper explores the involvement of teachers, children, and parents in a project based on learning a second language (L2) within a multicultural...     

Analyzing the degree of technology use occurring in pre-service teacher education

Technology is not in the forefront of teacher education program thinking and planning. Yet, it is the tool dramatically changing education. Internationally, the role of technology has evolved from the role of assisting the teacher in personal management to using technology for instruction. To respond to this need, universities are altering courses to infuse the introduction and utilization of technological tools to enhance instruction. The end product is that pre-service teachers should graduate with the skills to seamlessly integrate technology to advance student learning. This study looks at a large comprehensive university’s available data on pre-service teachers regarding their utilization of technology. The focus of the study was to (a) document the technology skills within the university's capstone project, (b) examine the capstone project data to confirm or refute the premise that pre-service teachers integrate technology, and (c) review other internal data to assess pre-service teacher competencies on technology.     

高校公共英语教育改革之思路

针对高校英语教育的现状,进行改革是一项艰巨的任务。一要加强学生思想工作,激发学生学习热情;二要引导学生改进学习方法,明确教与学的关系;三要突破传统教育模式,以培养学生技能为本;四要提高公共英语教育者的自身素质。搞好高校英语教育改革,需在实践中摸索出一条适合学生具体情况,适应社会发展需要的英语教育新路子。     

Projects in Technology Education and Fostering Learning: The Potential and Its Realization

The current study aimed at examining the efficacy of technological projects as learning tools by exploring the following questions: the extent to which projects in technology develop students as independent learners; the types of knowledge the students deal with in working on their projects; the role of problem-solving in technological projects; and how projects integrate into traditional schooling. The subjects were 53 high school (12th grade) students who prepared graduating projects in technology under the supervision of nine teachers. Data were collected by observing the students in the laboratory, administrating two questionnaires to both the students and the teachers, and analyzing 25 portfolios prepared by the students of their projects. The findings indicate that projects in technology provide a good opportunity to engage students in challenging tasks that enhance their learning skills. To maximize this potential, it is necessary to employ the project method from the early stages of learning technology. It is especially important that teachers having a strong engineering orientation also acquire pedagogical knowledge on issues such as fostering independent learning, creativity, peer learning and reflective practice in the technological classroom.     

语言哲学视域下英语语言学习现象检视

目前英语语言学习普遍存在的现象,一是语言学习中的师生正在逐步变成单向度的主体,慢慢丧失否定、批判和超越能力;二是语言学习中存在抽象化的语境和技术化的课程。而这是语言学习受到工具理性影响的表现,必须通过语言交往来改变单向度的现象,同时要避免工具理性的语言观。     

基于校园网拓展语音室教学功能的对策

校园网的普及使英语教学朝着个性化学习、不受时间和地点限制的学习、主动性学习方面发展。这就要求从硬件技术上充分利用校园网的优势拓展语音室教学功能。而建立一系列规范化的语音室课程教学大纲和标准是拓展教学功能的前提。提高语音室管理者和外语教师的素质是提高教学效果的重要保证。