Cultural Differences between China and America

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English gives an explanation that culture is the customs,beliefs,art,music,and all the other products of human thought made by particular group of people at a particular time.Different nations have differ ent cultures.Various cultural factors result in different language forms.China and America are distinct in languages,customs,be haviors,values and many other aspects.It is the many differences between Chinese and Americans that constitute their own dis tinct cultures.We can see that people bring along their culture with them and stick to their cultural norms in their daily life.     

Analysis and Evaluation of the Learners’ESL in Terms of Developmental Acquisition Stage

This essay aims at utilizing the acquisition criterion developed by researchers to analyze the data collected from the two learners of English in Australia. Drawn from the Processability theory and the theory of Second Language Acquisition, the findings in both quantitative and qualitative forms will be presented to draw a conclusion that the two students have reached at which developmental stage their L2 learning is.     

The Struggling Egos in a Harsh Society

As social beings, men can not avoid being affected by the dominant ideologies of their time. At the same time, asanimals with intellect, they inevitably have their own passions and thoughts. When thrown into a society, they will constantly findthemselves tortured by their natural self and their social consciousness. In the face of such a conflict, ego, which refers to therational, thoughtful and realistic personality process, plays its part in meditating the conflict. By discussing briefly the three maincharacters' struggling egos in The Scarlet Letter, we can see clearly that Nathaniel Hawthorne's work reflects the above fact. heholds that man is not able to escape the influence of the society, on the other hand, he is not the least dismayed at human beings'comparative mental freedom.     

Gender Is Cultural Rather Than Natural—Jane Campion's The Piano

Sex and gender have been confusingly categorised by many scholars.Sex refers to biological characteristics;gender,can also be influenced by biology but does not determined by it.Unlike sex,which is determined by nature at birth,gender is a social construct specifying the culturally prescribed roles that men and women are to follow and represent.In order to argue that gender attaches to culture and that gender identity is shaped socially and culturally,this essay analyses Jane Campion’s The Piano from three perspectives.Firstly,the essay will examine the way people in the film represent their gender characters through three repeatedly demonstrated narrative motifs,clothing,the axe and the piano,to illustrate that gender is performative and that cultural gender identities advocate specific performances in terms of behaviour,speech,views,etc.(Butler,2011).Then,through an analysis of the different gazes of the characters in the film,the essay indicates that social and cultural interaction between the genders can go beyond and blur the boundaries of the stereotypical categories of male and female.In the third section,the essay will argue that social rules and discourse also play a prominent role in shaping people’s gender,by discussing how the characters represent and re-define their gender identity under the pressure of the patriarchal society they inhabit.     

A Critical,Bio-social Paradigm in Applied Linguistics:A new Flower Blooming in the Field

In this article,some new developments in the field of applied linguistics are summarized.In addition,it is illustrated that researchers’epistemology determines their methodology.And their research conclusions are also led by their epistemology.It is proposed that a critical,bio-social paradigm be taken in the field of applied linguistics.     

中国青年在想些什么?

It is said that "young people often look ahead to the future while the elderly look back on the past". The young are quick to respond to changes and are at the forefront of new trends in society. Of course, what they choose to do is largely determined by their backgrounds.     

Symbols In HEMINGWAY''''S “Hills Like White Elephants” Story commentary

HEMINGWAY's story,“Hills Like White Elephants”,is about lovingrelationships between an American man and a girl.As lovers,they are in-timate,with the girl in the state of pregnancy.The story is told from the objective point of view.It takes place duringa 40-minute wait between trains.What lies behind them is indicated by thelabels on their bags.What lies ahead of them implies entire force and dir-ection of the story.It is at the station that a decision will be made that     

Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Inquiry： An Instrument to Assess It and Its Application to High School In-Service Science Teachers

It is argued that the lack of consensus on what constitutes an inquiry-based approach makes the generalization about it difficult, because the concept is relatively unspecific and vague. This problem can partially be solved by constructing a set of activities promoted by inquiry, thus defining the inquiry objectives for classroom and laboratory teaching. Five high school and college Mexican teachers＇ PICK （pedagogical inquiry/content knowledge） was documented and assessed by means of Loughran, Mulhall and Berry＇s （2004） l-CoRe （inquiry content representation） developed by the authors through a proposal of a set of seven inquiry activities. They were also interviewed to construct the professional and pedagogical experience repertoires, a second tool by Loughran et al. （2004） to document PICK. It was observed that all teachers interviewed have used inquiry to modify their students＇ way of thinking, mainly through question posing. Some of them employed research as their main tool to promote scientific inquiry but others mentioned the lack of time to do it. It is interesting to notice that in spite of the fact that inquiry is out of the curriculum in M6xico, the teachers make use of it to improve their teaching practice. According to their answers, their actions in the classroom or the lab were classified within the three general approaches expressed by Lederman （2004）： implicit, historical and explicit. It is concluded that a given teacher cannot be classified exclusively in one of them, because in his/her activities one general approach overlaps the others. The authors conclude that Lederman＇s classification has to be taken into account as an orientation to characterize a given activity of one teacher, even though the same teacher may use another activity characterized by other general approach. That is, Lederman＇s classification applies to characterize activities, not persons     

A passage from linguistics to English language teaching： Students＇ experiences and expectations

Linguistic courses in ELT （English Language Teaching） departments, in some ways, may create obstacles due to their firm theoretical framework. Therefore, this study is concerned with the main problems for the students taking linguistic courses in ELT Department at Trakya University in Turkey. The purpose of the study is to investigate the attitudes of the students in ELT departments towards attending linguistic courses. The survey was carried out with 21-item likert type scale designed by the researcher. The results specify that, the students at Trakya University admit the effectiveness of linguistic courses and have found a way to applied linguistics from theoretical linguistics.     

Types and Frequency of Corporal Punishment Parents Used on Their Primary School Age Children

This study intends to investigate and determine the types of corporal punishment and their frequency used by parents on their primary school age children that are within the context of light, violent and very violent physical aggressive behavior. This research was realized with 151 first, second and third grade pupils at a primary school in Bursa. The Turkish version of Picture-Card Version for Young Children of the Parent-to-Child Conflict Tactics Scales developed by Straus （2002） was used. Between 1.5% and 22.1% of the children reported that their parents ＂Sometimes＂ and ＂Often＂ used light physical aggressive behaviors. 30.3% of the students reported that their parents ＂Sometimes＂ and 7.7% of parents ＂Often＂ inflicted violent physical aggressive behaviors. 7.7% of the students reported that their parents ＂Often＂ and 34.9% of parents ＂Sometimes＂ inflicted very violent physical aggressive behaviors. It is expected that the findings of this study will raise the awareness of school stuff and educationalists.     

Behavior of alkali minerals in oxyfuel co-combustion of biomass and coal at elevated pressure

Combustion of biomass or coal is known to yield aerosols and condensed alkali minerals that affect boiler heat transfer performance. In this work, alkali behavior in the pressurized oxyfuel co-combustion of coal and biomass is predicted by thermodynamic and chemical kinetic calculations. Existence of solid minerals is evaluated by X-ray diffraction(XRD) analysis of ashes from pressure thermogravimetric combustion. Results indicate that a rise in pressure affects solid alkali minerals negligibly, but increases their contents in the liquid phase and decreases them in the gas phase, especially below 900 ℃. Thus, less KCl will condense on the boiler heat transfer surfaces leading to reduced corrosion. Increasing the blend ratio of biomass to coal will raise the content of potassium-based minerals but reduce the sodium-based ones. The alkali-associated slagging in the boiler can be minimized by the synergistic effect of co-combustion of sulphur-rich coal and potassium-rich biomass, forming stable solid K_2SO_4 at typical fluidized bed combustion temperatures. Kinetics modelling based on reaction mechanisms shows that oxidation of SO_2 to SO_3 plays a major role in K_2SO_4 formation but that the contribution of this oxidation decreases with increase in pressure.     

A case study on mathematics anxiety for mathematics of finance course

The DIIA （Diploma in Investment Analysis） students from the FBM （Faculty of Business Management） were required to undertake several MOF （Mathematic of Finance） courses. The passing rates for all of the MOF courses were good except for one course. There are many factors for this low passing rate phenomenon for this particular MOF course. One of the factors is mathematics anxiety as suggested by Richardson in 1971. As a result, this paper is carried out in order to measure the undergraduates＇ level of mathematics anxiety in general and between genders in this one particular course. The outcome is expected to fill in the gap as study of anxiety in MOF is still lacking. A 30-item MARS （Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale） is adapted and used in this study, because this course is predominant by complex computations. The Ss （samples） of the study are 119 students who undertook this MOF course during the study semester of December 2008 to April 2009 in UiTM （Universiti Teknologi MARA）. It is expected that the findings will show that the Ss have a considerably high mean for mathematics anxiety; and female students have a higher mean of mathematics anxiety as compared to their male counterparts. The study confirms the expectation of the researchers. In terms of the final and overall results, it was expected that the passing percentage be dominated by the male students. However, at the end of the study, the overall performance of the female students was much better compared to their male counterparts.     

Creativity and Language Usage in Interactive and Integrated Projects

This paper aims at outlining the dual-focused approach used to train architecture students to work independently on re-development and re-usage concepts in an Erasmus IP （intensive programme） workshop, where English was used as the working language. The creative tasks were combined with communication skills （social and technical English, negotiation skills）, which were to enable the students to present their outcome publicly in the final presentation. The underlying concept is that students work in small international groups and develop their own method to address the given problem in the form of a real project. Through the project-based approach, students search for information that accompanies their project ideas, which helps them find a viable solution. The creative work process is completed by a thorough evaluation and intensive reflection phase in order to strengthen the students＇ learning experience. Additionally, the interdisciplinary approach, as well as the multinational aspect that originate from different cultural and educational backgrounds of the students, shall contribute to the interactive work process. This process of interaction is based on the idea of experiential learning that sees knowledge as the transformation of experience.     

Extraction of color-intensity feature towards image authentication

A color-intensity feature extraction method is proposed aimed at supplementing conventional image hashing algorithms that only consider intensity of the image. An image is mapped to a set of blocks represented by their dominant colors and average intensities. The dominant color is defined by hue and saturation with the hue value adjusted to make the principal colors more uniformly distributed. The average intensity is extracted from the Y component in the YCbCr space. By quantizing the color and intensity components, a feature vector is formed in a cylindrical coordinate system for each image block, which may be used to generate an intermediate hash. Euclidean distance is modified and a similarity metric introduced to measure the degree of similarity between images in terms of the color-intensity features. This is used to validate effectiveness of the proposed feature vector. Experiments show that the color-intensity feature is robust to normal image processing while sensitive to malicious alteration, in particular, color modification.     

A Solution to Both Moral Education and Language Learning in International Education

Students in international education are required not only to master both second language and their major courses,but also sustain their moral development.Nevertheless,due to lack of time,these two goals can hardly be satisfied at the same time.This article aims to analyze the necessity and feasibility of instructing morals and second language simultaneously by designing moral-based tasks.An experiment on implementing task-based language learning with moral emphasis has been carried out in an international education class in China.The findings reveal that the majority of students admit that moral education is of great importance and using moral-based task to instruct morals is time saving and efficient,though the frequency of assigning tasks should be reduced.     

At The Tuckshop

Recess is a busy time in our school. I believe it is the same in all schools. Soon after the bell for recess rings, all the pupils come out of their classrooms. However, we do not run as our teachers have told us to be orderly at all times. Almost all the children go to the tuckshop which sells a variety of food and drinks. We line up in front of the different stalls and wait patiently for our turn. Nobody tries to jump the queue or push others. Our prefects make sure that discipline is observed by all.     

尼斯的冬季阳光

THERE is a place in the Algarve so different from the seaside towns with their flashy marinas,highrise hotels and English and Irish bars that characterise the region;a place that is not surrounded by golf courses.Yet it lies at the gateway to the Algarve. One million British tourists fly in to Faro airport     

Study on Pragmatic Vagueness in Diplomatic Language

Vagueness in natural language is one of the most common social phenomenon, however, it was not until the development of fuzzy set theory which was put forward by L.A. Zadeh that scholars began to realize the importance of vagueness in language. Up to now, many researchers have made substantial progress in describing and explaining this complex phenomenon. In this thesis, the writer aims at studying the linguistic devices of vagueness and their pragmatic functions to help the general readers to have a better understanding of vagueness in diplomatic language.     

The inculcation of generic skills among juveniles through Technical and Vocational Education

Generic skills are skills which contribute towards individual＇s effective and successful participation in the workplace. For juveniles, Technical and Vocational Education （TVE） is one of the platforms that provide them generic skills which enable them to compete for job market. The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of generic skills that has been inculcated through TVE on juveniles in one of the juvenile schools in Malaysia, the time the teachers spent on inculcating the skills, and the challenges the instructors face in the process. There are four focuses of the generic skills that are of interest in this study： communication, teamwork, problem solving and technology. Eight teachers and 119 juveniles were chosen as the respondents from the Juvenile School （JS）. The data collected was through a set of questionnaires from the respondents, and these were analyzed by using frequency, percentage and mean score. The findings from this research show that the level of generic skills inculcated as perceived by the juveniles is at a moderate level. The perceived moderate level of skill acquire of the juveniles is justified by the moderate amount of time that the teachers believed they spend in instilling the generic skills. The teachers also suggested that the lack of understanding on what generic skills are is the main reason for not inculcating generic skills at its highest level. In conclusion, generic skills inculcation on juveniles through TVE in Juvenile School is at an average level. Measures have to be taken so that inculcation of generic skills can be increase to a higher level, as these generic skills will benefit juveniles in the labor force market.     

An Empirical Study on the Students’ Motivation and Attitudes Who Take Esp Optional Courses

The learners’ motivation and attitude toward English for Specific Purposes(ESP) is always an influential element for the quality of ESP course.Teachers should at first get to know the learners’ motivation and attitude toward this course so as to teach the course well.Therefore,by means of questionnaire survey on the students’ motivation and attitudes who took accounting English in M University as their elective course during the next term in 2009,and through qualitative study,such as interviews,diary and classroom observation on the accounting English choosers in the next term in 2010,some conclusions are discovered that there are about 4 factors and 3 variables among the students’ motivations,and their attitudes toward this course is positive in general.Both accounting and English are their learning targets,and oral English and translation are their favors.The combination of blackboard-writing and multimedia technology is preferred than any of the other single teaching models.But the shortage of class hours and the lack of systematic arrangement also affect the students’ motivation and their learning efficiency.