Teacher learning： Reflective practice as a site of engagement for professional identity construction

This paper reports a qualitative study in response to the growing research interest in teacher learning. Informed by a sociocultural perspective, teacher learning is considered as a process of identity construction in the paper. This paper taps into the development of teacher identity embedded in teacher learning and views reflection as a social practice for enhancing teacher learning. Through a close analysis of a selected discussion thread, this paper aims to demonstrate that teacher-learners＇ reflective practice in the online learning community provided a site of engagement for developing their professional identity and shaping the practice of teaching in their process of learning to teach.     

The Use of English in Public Life in China

English as a world language has been paid much attention not only by individuals but also by governments in metropolises as well as small cities in China.Both individuals and governments in Tianjin,one of metropolises and Jiaozuo,one of small cities in China have realized the importance of English.Such a realization has resulted in the wide use of English in public facilities,such as traffic signs and tourist indicators,and English banking service Also,individual Chinese of different ages have a strong desire to learn English.Through comparing the use of English in a public life in these two cities,the authors intend to show a wide use of English in public life in China.     

Child''''s Play for Madonna

Madonna at the launch party in London. Photo: Reuters"I'm only going to read for as long as you can sit still," said US pop singer Madonna, as she gave an invitation-only reading of a children's story she penned to the offspring of a group of friends in London.     

Analysis of the dynamics of the sharing knowledge between cooperating teacher and teacher-in-training： The partners＇ respective roles

Collaboration is becoming increasingly important in the realm of education （Novoa, 2004）. For instance, as soon as training is undertaken, the future teacher must develop an ability to cooperate in a pedagogical context. However, in order to learn to make a relevant contribution to a teaching team＇s undertakings and to provide innovative suggestions in pedagogical matters （Gouvernement du Quebec, 2001）, the student teacher needs solid backing from the cooperating teacher. A student teacher＇s willingness to reflect on and to question his own teaching practices will create a much more promising learning context （Portelance ＆ Durand, 2006）. Reciprocally, the cooperating teacher will make a positive contribution to the student teacher by accepting that his positions be questioned and even altered （Johnston, Wetherill ＆ Greenebaum, 2002）. It is the dynamics of sharing of knowledge and know-how in this partnership that retains our interest. From 2004 to 2007, the researchers carried out a study of the subject by examining four practicum sessions at high school level in a number of Quebec schools. To gather data, the researchers used written questionnaires, individual interviews, as well as recordings of conversations between student teachers and their cooperating teachers. These conversations pertain to the conception and to the execution, by the student teacher, of teaching-learning situations. These dialogues were integrally transcribed and processed by N＇vivo, software designed to analyze qualitative data. the researchers present a typology of the respective roles taken on by the two partners in their discussions. The cooperating teacher reveals himself to be an advisor, a transmitter of information and a teacher. The student teacher also takes on the role of transmitter of information, as well as that of reflective practitioner, among others, the researchers observed that the conversations are usually carried out in an egalitarian spirit and, in some cases, give rise to co-construction of practical knowledge.     

Discussion of Using Literature in The EFL Reading Classroom

This essay discusses the issue concerning the use of literature as a pedagogic tool in the EFL reading classroom, which is different from the traditional study of literature. It aims to illustrate that literary texts can be used as a useful language teaching resource rather than as an object of literary study. In the essay, the first part talks about the values of using literature in the EFL reading classroom. The second part is a set of activities related to a specific literary text which aim to develop some of the values identified in the first part.     

The Role of Humor in Language Teaching

Humor plays an important role in many spheres and aspects of human life. The study is intended to analyze the feasibil-ity of utilizing humor as a communicative strategy as well as a tool to create a p...     

EFL EXTENSIVE READING AT COLLEGE LEVEl

To a student of English, reading is one of the four basic skills. And his ultimate goal in reading English is to be able grasp idea as quickly and eaily as he would if he were reading his native language. Yet in early stages of language acquisition, the first inclination in reading of most English students is to translate. Translation is a slow, laborious process. The writer＇s train of thoughts may become lost, as well as the enjoyment of reading. Moreover, translation is an art in itself and not a practical procedure for everyday reading. The student should attempt to develop a feeling for the target language so that he is really reading, not deciphering word for word.     

Pragmatic Analysis of Well and its Reflection the Discourse Marker in Desperate Housewife

This paper focuses on the pragmatic functions of the discourse marker WELL in verbal communication. After the analysis of the lines in Desperate Housewife it is found WELL can act respectively as a mitigator of face-threatening acts, insufficiency marker as well as the discourse unit. Such a study helps us to rethink about the functions of the small words in interaction, which are of crucial importance to reveal the dynamic process of verbal communication.     

How to Provide“Scaffold”in Reading for Secondary Vocational School Students

Many secondary vocational school students are afraid of reading,while teachers are often trapped in a dilemma as to how to teach reading. The present paper,based on scaffold theory,elaborates when and how to provide scaffold in reading teaching through a case study so as to promote the efficiency of English reading classes in secondary vocational schools.     

A Curriculum Report on Teachers as Decision-maker

Curriculum design is an aspect of education profession which focuses on developing curricula for students.Educators will take many factors in consideration when design a curriculum.In practical teaching,teacher as decision makers to design an appropriate curricu lum and teaching activities play an important part in the whole teaching and learning.Many classroom teachers are working with students of different levels of ability,and they need to be able to adjust the curriculum to keep all of the students engaged and learning.It may also be necessary to change the pace of a curriculum to deal with problems as they arise.The essay analyse five parts in designing the curriculum as a teacher decision maker and get a conclusion according to the whole analysis course.     

Understanding Periodicity as a Process with a Gestalt Structure

This paper presents a two phase investigation of how Israeli students (grades 3 to 12) understand the concept of periodicity. Qualitative study, including classroom observations, as well as interviews with students and with teachers, was performed as a first phase. Quantitative study, including a survey of 895 eleventh grade students, was performed as a second phase. Students' errors in relating to non-periodic phenomena and to non-periodic function as periodic, as well as their period preferment, were revealed in both phases and were classified. The evidence supports the claim that students understand periodicity as a process. The students' errors and preferences are discussed with reference to two frameworks: (1) the understanding of periodicity as a process, (2) the Gestalt theory.     

Building world class universities through innovative teaching governance

There is a growing interest in educational innovation in universities at a global level, as a tool designed to create strategic changes in order to improve quality. This study evaluates the global improvement in universities as a result of educational innovation governance, as a pillar of the so-called world-class research universities and as a tool for continuous improvement in higher education. The methodology has been designed by different educational innovation groups from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Universidad de Cádiz, and the International Project Management Association Spanish Board, and includes an analysis of 67 universities from 20 countries. The study is based on 32 universities in Spain, as well as 35 other international universities that carry out educational innovation activity. The results show that universities that have a more mature educational innovation governance in place, both in Spain as well as in other countries, are higher in the ranking of universities (Webometrics). These universities demonstrate a tendency to work on educational innovation projects, which are contributing to strategic changes that will permanently revitalise teaching, whilst also improving research and its links to society.     

西部城市发展的现代进程与城市化问题——以绵阳城市发展为例

走城市化道路是一个国家迈向现代化的必由之路。我国西部地区的整体发展水平远远落后于东部和中部发达地区,如何启动西部的城市化是当前需要特别关注的问题。绵阳是共和国历史上移植现代工业和高科技而形成的一座新兴城市,绵阳的城市发展历程在共和国历史上较为典型,在西部地区也较为成功。本文选取绵阳城市作为研究个案,着重探讨西部内陆地区走城市化道路的问题。     

论民族区域自治在我国政治生活中地位的变化

民族区域自治是我国处理民族问题的一项基本政策,也是我国的一项基本政治制度.但从正式提出以民族区域自治作为解决我国民族问题的一项政策到基本政策,民族区域自治制度从最初确定为国家的一项政治制度,到定位于国家的重要政治制度,再到定位于国家的基本政治制度,却经历了一个长期探索的过程.文章分阶段详细地分析了民族区域自治在我国国家政治生活中地位变化的过程及背景.     

‘When I am being rushed it slows down my brain’: constructing self-understandings as a mathematics learner

Understanding learning disabilities (LDs) as constructed through multiple cultural practices including discourse, this paper focuses on a Latino middle school student with a LD named Elijah. This study documents both the discourses and practices used to position Elijah as a mathematics learner, as well as his use of similar discourses as he constructs a complex set of self-understandings as a mathematics learner. Elijah is positioned by discourses that prioritise speed as an indicator of mathematical ability, as well as discourses that construct students with LD as having both intelligence and differences such as processing speed. An analysis of interview and observational data suggests that Elijah constructed a unique set of self-understandings as a mathematics learner. Like his sixth-grade special education teacher, Elijah seems to differentiate between knowledge and the performance of knowledge in school. He created a unique identity as both ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ in mathematics, rejecting the binary found in many mathematics classrooms. These findings suggest that multiple discourses circulate in schools about ability and disability in mathematics.     

Redefining the Role of English as a Foreign Language in the Curriculum in the Global Context

The English language has become a global language, a development which has influenced English language teaching and learning throughout the world. This influence has occurred more impressively in China than in other parts of the world as a result of the breathtaking pace at which China has integrated with global economies. Increasing industrial, economic and multicultural development has spurred language educators in China to question the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum in relation to the role of English, particularly in secondary schools. In this paper we present a brief review of the role of English as a global language in the Chinese context, a context which is now to be seen as a global one. The new curriculum has been progressively rolled out in Chinese schools since 2001. We highlight the redefinition of the role of English in the new EFL curriculum in Chinese secondary schools in particular and the significance of this as it presents new features of the new EFL curriculum as part of a developing research field, based on a comparison with the 1993 EFL curriculum. In this study, we focus on policy statements and curriculum documents as well as published previous research in order to understand the redefining of the role of English as a foreign language in the new EFL curriculum.     

Beginning to Understand Teaching as a Discipline

We explore the possibility of understanding teaching as a discipline in its own right, rather than as a domain that is ancillary to the many academic disciplines. While teaching looks easy and is widely regarded as easy, the image of teaching as transmission and the perspective of technical rationality mask the many ways in which challenging and engaging teaching represents a highly disciplined view. When extended to teacher education, the perspective of teaching as a discipline sheds powerful light on longstanding frustrations reported by those learning to teach. We argue for the conclusion that teaching is a discipline and that teacher education is the home of that discipline, with self-study as one of the central methodologies for making explicit the knowledge inherent in teaching seen as a discipline.     

BEING A LEARNER: A VIRTUE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

ABSTRACT:  Lifelong learning is something which one does for oneself that no one else can do for one: it is a public and personal human activity, rather than private or individualistic. One of the features of the education system is the paucity of a language for learning as process and participative experience. Personalised learning requires a sense of the worthwhileness of 'being a learner'– a virtue in the 21st century. A sense of one's own worth as a person is essential to understanding one's identity as a learner. Research suggests the human capacity to learn can be understood as a form of consciousness which is characterised by particular values, attitudes and dispositions, with a lateral and a temporal connectivity. This 'consciousness' has several dimensions which are all related to becoming a person, with a learning identity. They also enable the learner to become aware of and appropriate what is of worth and map onto the sorts of core values that learning communities espouse. Awareness of self and of one's own worth as a person is a necessary condition for 'becoming a learner' and for identifying and engaging with 'what is of worth'. Furthermore, a sense of self as a learner is formed in relationship, and understood as one learns to tell one's own story, as a participant in the conversation of the learning community. Character is the way in which we refer to that quality of personhood in which there is rooted the capacity to change and learn over time.     

论英语名词词组的翻译

英语名词词组是指以名词为中心加上其他修饰语所构成的词组。对此类词组的翻译,依据等值论．应当把它看成一个整体来找其语言语符表层、语义深层、语用修辞层的等值转换,并恰当地运用熔铸、转换等翻译技巧去进行处理,才能得到与原词组等值的汉语词组。     

Young Travellers and the Children's Fund: some practical notes on an experimental image-based research project

The paper reflects on how photography was used during a small piece of mixed methods qualitative research with some young Travellers and their families. The context for the study was 'Every Child Matters' and the accompanying push aimed to include groups considered as marginalised, such as young Travellers, in mainstream educational provision, as well as to listen to children and involve them in decision-making about service provision and its evaluation. Photography was used experimentally as a kind of participatory methodology to engage young Travellers in the formative evaluation of a Children's Fund project that aimed to increase their participation in formal and informal learning activities. The account discusses some of the outcomes of using the image-based methodology, as well as some of the limitations and dilemmas that emerged.