A Study of the Problems in College Students’ Oral English Practice

In recent years,as we all know that English is spreading and using widely in china.It has developed from monotonous language and knowledge to multiple and compositive language and knowledge.For example,the level four and the level eight test of English major and the level four and level six text of non-English major is also reforming.They usually major in reading before,but with the time going on,they need all the students to apply the ability of listening,reading,writing and speaking all in one.Spoken language is the most unsubstantial link all of these days.Of cause,it’s reflected in English teaching,it makes spoken language an unsubstantial link in College English Teaching.     

The Sacrifice on the Altar-An Analysis of the Conflict between Montanelli’s Humanity and Divinity in The Gadfly

Montanelli suffered from the fierce conflict between humanity and divinity in his pursuit of religious belief.As a sacrifice on the altar of God,Montanelli’s tragedy reflects the influence of the religion upon his behaviors,his internal spirit and his tragic destiny in the end.Furthermore,it manifests the cruelty and darkness of the religious rule and the distortion of the humankind in his age.     

The Education of Students with Immigrant Background in Iceland: Parents’ and Teachers’ Voices

In recent years Icelandic schools have seen an increase in students with immigrant background. These changes require schools and teachers to respond to the educational needs these students may have. The aim of this article is to examine these changes by looking at the experience of teachers and parents of immigrant students regarding their education. As part of this qualitative research, 38 teachers were interviewed in focus groups with a view to the challenges and experiences of teaching immigrant students. Ten parents were also interviewed individually about their experiences of Icelandic schools and their children’s education. The findings revealed that teachers are unsupported in their quest for understanding and managing multicultural education and that the Icelandic school system challenges foreign parents’ understanding of school as a traditional place for learning. It is suggested that addressing the lack of collaboration and discussion between both parties on students’ needs and parents’ expectations could improve the education of immigrant students.     

Examining the Effect of Enactment of a Geospatial Curriculum on Students’ Geospatial Thinking and Reasoning

A potential method for teaching geospatial thinking and reasoning (GTR) is through geospatially enabled learning technologies. We developed an energy resources geospatial curriculum that included learning activities with geographic information systems and virtual globes. This study investigated how 13 urban middle school teachers implemented and varied the enactment of the curriculum with their students and investigated which teacher- and student-level factors accounted for students’ GTR posttest achievement. Data included biweekly implementation surveys from teachers and energy resources content and GTR pre- and posttest achievement measures from 1,049 students. Students significantly increased both their energy resources content knowledge and their GTR skills related to energy resources at the end of the curriculum enactment. Both multiple regression and hierarchical linear modeling found that students’ initial GTR abilities and gain in energy content knowledge were significantly explanatory variables for their geospatial achievement at the end of curriculum enactment, p < .001. Teacher enactment factors, including adherence to implementing the critical components of the curriculum or the number of years the teachers had taught the curriculum, did not have significant effects on students’ geospatial posttest achievement. The findings from this study provide support that learning with geospatially enabled learning technologies can support GTR with urban middle-level learners.     

The Interrelation of First-Year College Students’ Critical Thinking Disposition, Perceived Academic Control, and Academic Achievement

While a great deal of research has examined students’ critical thinking skills, less is known about students’ tendencies to use these skills. Specifically, little is known about what factors contribute to students developing a disposition to think critically or what impact this disposition has on college students’ academic achievement. Perceived control, which has been found to be an important factor in college students’ academic success, may be an important factor in developing this disposition. The current longitudinal study examined the reciprocal-effects between critical thinking disposition and perceived academic control, and their comparative influences on academic achievement in 1196 first-year college students. Using a two-wave, two-variable cross-lag structural equation model, a reciprocal-effect was found whereby students’ perceived academic control predicted their subsequent critical thinking disposition, and students’ critical thinking disposition predicted their subsequent perceived academic control. Furthermore, after controlling for high school academic performance, perceived academic control was found to have a stronger impact on students’ GPAs than critical thinking disposition. Implications of fostering a critical thinking disposition and perceived academic control among college students are discussed.

Exploration and Practice of Improving College Students’ Speaking Competence through Group Discussion

The aim of English teaching is not only to make the students learn new words and grammar, answer multiple-choice questions to get good scores, but also to enhance the students’abilities of the integrated application of English, speaking and listening in particular. The ultimate goal of learning English is to use English to communicate with others in the future jobs and real life. However, the non-English majors have great trouble speaking English in class and in real life. Such ways as Socratic dialogues, cause analysis and questionnaire are used to investigate the reasons. In order to improve speaking ability, group discussion is used in class. In consequence, the students have more interest, motivation, courage and confidence in speaking English. Meanwhile, they have also established the concept of using what they learned in class, in practical work and real life.     

‘Learning Experience’ Provided by Science Teaching Practice in a Classroom and the Development of Students’ Competences

According to the literature, there is a very important corpus of knowledge that allows for the investigation of some dimensions of ‘learning experience’ provided to students, in relation to epistemic, pedagogical and meta-cognitive practices. However, in the literature, there is little investigation into the invariance (or not) of the characteristics of students’ learning experience while being taught a scientific subject by the same teacher. This paper suggests that the relationship between the learning experience provided and the competences developed is not properly highlighted. This paper analyses the learning experience provided to students in epistemic, pedagogical and meta-cognitive terms. The students were taught the proprieties and applications of light by one teacher, in three classes, over 7 weeks. We analysed the data in each referred learning experience, using a pre-defined category system. The students’ competences were evaluated by a competence test. The epistemic demand of each item and the students’ performances were also analysed. Our findings point to the non invariance of learning experiences provided to students and the influence of some dimensions of learning experiences provided in the development of certain competences. These findings and their implications are contextualized and discussed.     

A Simple Study of the Teacher’s Influence on Students’ Psychology in English Learning

This paper analyzes the teacher’s influence on students’psychologyin English learning from two aspects and emphasizes the importance of English teachers’role in helping students establish healthy psychology in English learning.     

The Study of ESP Teaching and Students’ Expectation of ESP Course

With the development of economic globalization,international communication and integration,English for Specific Purpose turned up and has enjoyed much popularity since recent years. In the contemporary society,ESP teaching becomes an increasing prominent teaching course. This paper will focus on the ESP teaching and learning,especially the students’ expectation of ESP course. At first,it will introduce the great importance and background of ESP teaching. Then,it will review the definition,categories and traits of ESP. In the end,it will mainly concern about students’ expectation and perception of ESP course.The main purpose of this paper is to bring up some constructive suggestions for ESP teaching and learning. It suggests that to achieve the goal of facilitating ESP teaching and learning effectively can be realized by understanding the characteristics of ESP teaching and learners’ learning style,choosing the suitable teaching materials,creating some specific fields of this study which is relevant practically,mapping out appropriate evaluation. As for students,they should set up clear goals for ESP learning,adopt such appropriate learning method as the self-construction way,and try the cooperative learning pattern. Besides,ESP teachers also play an important role in this process. They can achieve the success of ESP teaching through planning course design at advance including considering and understanding students’ expectation of ESP course,their characteristics,learning goals and appropriate teaching materials,which all contribute to positive ESP learning experience.     

On The Conceptions of Time and Order in Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury

The publication of the famous novel The Sound and The Fury projects the long-enduring reputation of William Faulkner as a household American writer in every nook and cranny of the world.Just in this novel,Faulkner employs the literary device of stream of consciousness and makes a good play with time and order to his own joy,which makes it an outstanding literary feature in the novel.In this essay,the unusual conceptions of time and order in the novel are tentatively probed mainly from the following three perspectives:1) the initiative for Faulkner creating the novel as a novel against time and order.2) the disordered arrangement as an artistic device——the optimum key to delivering the story.3) the potential order underlying the seeming disorder in the novel.     

The Association Between a Community College’s Teacher Education Program and the 4-year Graduation Rates of Black and Hispanic Teacher Education Students

ABSTRACT

In response to a shortage of qualified Black and Hispanic teachers, community colleges (CC) have developed certificate programs and Associate of Arts degrees in teacher education to address shortages of minority teachers in the nation’s classrooms. We examined one CC’s effectiveness in transferring Black and Hispanic students to university teacher education programs and the association with Black and Hispanic students graduating with a bachelor’s degree. We compared enrollment and transfer student data for the 2003 community college teacher education program cohort to graduation data for native-to-university students of two 4-year universities. Data were analyzed using chi square and phi coefficients. The CC Black and Hispanic students graduated at the same rates as the native-to-university students and higher than their peers of the same races, regardless of major, who began at 2-year colleges at the national level. We encourage CC teacher education programs to invest resources to increase enrollment of Black and Hispanic students to address the growing need for minority teachers to serve in urban communities.     

The Relationship between Students’ Views of the Nature of Science and their Views of the Nature of Scientific Measurement

The present study explores the relationship between students’ views of the nature of science (NOS) and their views of the nature of scientific measurement. A questionnaire with two‐tier diagnostic multiple‐choice items on both the NOS and measurement was administered to 179 first‐year physics students with diverse school experiences. Students’ views on the NOS were classified into four NOS ‘profiles’, and views on measurement were classified according to either the point or set paradigms. The findings show that students with a NOS profile dominated by a belief that the laws of nature are to be discovered by scientists are more likely to have a view of the nature of scientific measurement characterised by a belief in ‘true’ values. On the other hand, students who believe that scientific theories are inventions of scientists, constructed from observations that are then validated through further experimentation, are more likely to have a view of the nature of scientific measurement that is underpinned by the uncertain nature of scientific evidence. The implications for teaching scientific measurement at tertiary level are discussed.     

The Alienation of Impotent Art in Cather’s Youth and the Bright Medusa

Willa Cather’s Youth and the Bright Medusa first published in 1920 is a collection of eight stories of similar themes depicting the modern artists’ futile attempts to construct their art kingdom. This essay focuses on Cather’s antipathy toward monetary wealth and aesthet ic persistence and reflects on theartists’ dilemma in a philistine industrial society.     

The Comparison and Contrast of Skopostheorie and Baker’s Equivalence Translation Approach

Equivalence can be said to be the central issue in translation although its different approaches have caused heated controversy.However,as early as the 1970s,the Skopostheorie emerged in Germany,and it seemed to challenge the equivalence theories.Although Nida and some linguistics raised some negative problems of this theory,it still rapidly became famous around the world,This article will mainly compare and analyse Skopostheorie and Baker’s translation equivalence approach.First,it will give a simple overview of these two approaches.Second,it will discuss the relevant strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches in relation to their usage.Finally,it will discuss combining these two approaches in the same translation.     

Investigation of the Relationship Between Middle School Students’ Computational Thinking Skills and their STEM Career Interest and Attitudes Toward Inquiry

Journal of Science Education and Technology - This study investigated the relationship between middle school students’ computational thinking skills and their STEM career interest and...     

The Impact of a Therapy Dog Program on Children’s Reading: Follow-up and Extension to ELL Students

An initiative in which therapy dogs were integrated into a school-wide reading curriculum was analyzed to determine the effect on student reading in the program’s second year. Prior research on the first year of this specific program (Kirnan et al. in Early Child Educ J 44(6):637–651) demonstrated improvement in reading scores only for kindergarten students, while interview data revealed increases in positive attitudes and enthusiasm for reading across all grades. In the current study, a series of independent t-tests were conducted for each grade, comparing the second year of the program to a control group. There was a significant difference for kindergarten in the second year, as reading scores were higher for program students compared to those in the control group. Unlike the first year of the program, in the second year there was also a significant mean difference in first grade. For both grades, an analysis of covariance controlling for reading scores prior to program implementation still resulted in a significant main effect for the reading program. Combining the first 2 years of the program yielded a large enough sample for a comparison of ELL students with non-ELL students in kindergarten. These data showed significantly higher reading scores for students enrolled in the dog program relative to the control for both ELL and non-ELL students, again accounting for earlier reading scores. These findings demonstrate the need to analyze at-risk subgroups as well as the need to apply a longitudinal lens in researching both dog-assisted literacy programs and participant progress.     

Models of “The Heavens and the Earth”: An Investigation of German and Taiwanese Students’ Alternative Conceptions of the Universe

The paper reports a cross-cultural investigation conducted in 2001–2002 that seeks to reveal students’ alternative ideas in two countries, Taiwan and Germany. It was carried out by means of semi-structured interviews in a story form. The targeted students were arbitrarily selected from grades 3 to 6 in both countries and amounted to 64. The questions in the interview were centered around “the heavens” (space, heavenly bodies, and familiar astronomical events) and “the earth” (the appearance, shape, movement, and, in some cases, gravity). The results indicated that, first, the students presented their ideas in a consistent manner, regardless of their cultural backgrounds, if we take into account the scope of questions and phenomena which were in their concern or of their interest. The comments from the student can be patterned into a structure-like whole, which we term “model” in the study. Second, the alternative models of “the heavens and the earth” elicited in the interviews appear to have various strengths of explaining familiar astronomical events. Interestingly, the more advanced a model is (in regard with the present-day cosmological model), the higher explanatory power it contains. As for the difference between the sample of two countries, the German students show more intention (or are more aware of the need) to explain astronomical phenomena than their Taiwanese counterparts, and thereby presented more precise models with stronger explanatory power. On the other hand, the Taiwanese students appeared to have more imagination and conceptual flexibility that should also be valued.     

The Relationship between Understanding of the Nature of Science and Practice: The influence of teachers’ beliefs about education,teaching and learning

This paper reports the relationship between four English primary teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and their practice. Action research was included as a major part of the research design in order to explore the dialectical interplay between various factors at work in the teachers’ practice. The influences of both tacit and espoused understandings of the nature of science were considered alongside the teachers’ beliefs about education, teaching, and learning. These beliefs were found to be the determining factor in the teachers’ decisions about classroom strategies. In arguing for a dialectical perspective on teachers’ practice, the research suggests that teachers’ espoused understanding of the nature of science may also be at least partially formed by the influence of these beliefs, raising the possibility that influence may run from teaching to theoretical understanding and not the other way round.