An Analysis of the E.E. Cummings’ “L(a”

E.E. Cummings is an American poet who is famous for his fantastic poems. L(a, one of his representative works, is a unique visual poem that shows Cummings' feeling of loneliness and takes readers into a sentimental scene. A great many researches have been done on this poem focusing on the morphology, visual effects, tonality and Cummings' inner world. However, a comprehensive literature review of this poem has hardly been made. Thus, this paper sums up some representative comments of these aspects, doing a literature review of it and then puts forward the author's own interpretation to make a contribution to the future studies of the poem.     

Teaching in the age of accountability: restrained by school culture?

In this paper, we explore how ‘teaching communication’ in the classroom is connected to school culture. In the age of accountability, the outcome focus force to the forefront, a ‘blame game’ which either blames students’ achievements on the teachers and teacher education, or the students and their socio-economic background. We argue that to succeed with teaching and learning is dependent on the school culture more than the single teacher or the students’ backgrounds. School culture is understood as attitudes, communication, student focus and engagement. Teaching communication in this paper is studied as teachers’ and students’ talk about subject matter in whole-class teaching. We explore how different school cultures give students different opportunities to experience meaning from teaching communication. The perspective on meaning is derived from Bildung-centred didactics. By using qualitative comparative case method in Norwegian Lower Secondary schools, we find three different types of ‘teaching communication’ typical for different school cultures: ‘Dialogic teaching communication’, ‘storytelling teaching communication’ and ‘reproducing teaching communication’. The school culture with the ‘dialogic’ variant is characterized by trust and reciprocity, making students’ experiencing meaning a possibility.     

Obama and the ‘Arab Spring’: desire,hope and the manufacture of disappointment. Implications for a transformative pedagogy

For a period, in the run up to the election (2007–2008) and the months after the election, the name ‘Obama’ signified hope for millions, not just in America but across the world. As the hope turned to disappointment, the financial crisis deepened and the Arab Spring renewed a call for a ‘humanity’ that could transcend the differences of nations and faiths. What can be learnt from such events about the pedagogies of hope, disappointment and public action? Are there lessons for a transformative pedagogy, an education that could underpin and continuously create the conditions for a politics of freedom and social justice? A range of print, broadcast and digital/Internet news media is analysed to explore the political/rhetorical/pedagogical strategies already set into play that ‘manufacture disappointment’ in order to undermine and negate the transformative, transgressive symbolic significance of ‘Obama’ and thus manage the theme of change to reassert the same.     

From soul to matter: the new Spanish Francoist pedagogy’s plunge into experimental pedagogy and the influence of Raymond Buyse

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the approach to experimental pedagogy adopted by the new Spanish pedagogy which arose after Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War. To this end, it first outlines the spiritualist and anti-scientific approaches which prevailed in the new pedagogy of the postwar era, before charting the survival, lying beneath this anti-modernist rhetoric, of an experimental tradition linked to certain clergymen. It then shows how the leading pedagogue of Franco’s Spain, Víctor García Hoz, ended up endorsing this school of thought, and analyses the influence in this evolution of the neo-scholasticism of the University of Louvain and the experimental pedagogy developed by Raymond Buyse, who maintained close ties with Spain throughout the 1940s. The paper also focuses on the key role played by Spanish pedagogy in the construction of an international network of Catholic pedagogues. Finally, a number of explanatory hypotheses are presented to explain the paradox posed by this endorsement of the more scientific version of pedagogy by a vehemently Catholic group of academics.     

The Properties and the Nature of Light: The Study of Newton’s Work and the Teaching of Optics

The history of science shows that for each scientific issue there may be more than one models that are simultaneously accepted by the scientific community. One such case concerns the wave and corpuscular models of light. Newton claimed that he had proved some properties of light based on a set of minimal assumptions, without any commitments to any one of the two models. This set of assumptions constitutes the geometrical model of light as a set of rays propagating in space. We discuss this model and the historical reasons for which it had the head-primacy amongst the relevant models. We argue that this model is indispensable in structuring the curriculum in Optics and attempt to validate it epistemologically. Finally, we discuss an approach for alleviating the implicit assumptions that students make on the nature of light and the subsequent interference of geometrical optics in teaching the properties of light related to its wave-like nature.     

Grammar and Its Teaching: Challenging the Myths

Grammar is often misunderstood in the language teaching field. The misconception lies in the view that grammar is a collection of arbitrary rules about static structures in the language. Further questionable claims are that the structures do not have to be taught, learners will acquire them on their own,     

A Tale of Two Conferences: L.A.T.E., Two Key Moments in the Development of ‘London' English and the Questions that Still Need Asking

Current and recent policy around curriculum and pedagogy for English in England has seen a lack of principled thinking about what the subject should be and how it should best serve the needs of children. In postwar England, in London in particular, teachers and academics working within the London Association for the Teaching of English (L.A.T.E.) were engaged in just such principled thinking, driven by the need to formulate a ‘new' English in the context of a changing school landscape and a changing school population. Central to L.A.T.E.'s work was the focus on the child, and the need to devise a model of the subject that was, at its core, responsive to the experience, interests and language of students. Given the direction central policy around English has taken in the past 20 years, this article considers the importance of reevaluating L.A.T.E.'s work, and considers two key conferences in the history of the Association as important watershed moments in the development of these aspects of ‘London' English. In doing so, it argues that the questions for which L.A.T.E. members sought answers are precisely those that should be asked today, but that seem to be absent from policymakers' debates about English.     

Investigating Omani Science Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Teaching Science: the Role of Gender and Teaching Experiences

A 30-item questionnaire was designed to determine Omani science teachers’ attitudes toward teaching science and whether or not these attitudes differ according to gender and teaching experiences of teachers. The questionnaire items were divided into 3 domains: classroom preparation, managing hands-on science, and development appropriateness. The questionnaire was administered to 139 randomly selected science teachers who teach science in grades 5–10. The sample consisted of 72 male teachers and 67 female teachers, 57 teachers with teaching experience between 1 and 5 years and 82 teachers with teaching experience of 6 and more years. The sample was selected from 7 schools in 1 Educational Governorate in the Sultanate of Oman. The questionnaire reliability was calculated by an internal consistency method, using Cronbach’s alpha, which gave the value of 0.73 for all the items. The findings indicated that science teachers’ attitudes toward teaching science were positive. Furthermore, the results showed that there were statically significant differences in teachers’ attitudes due to gender in favor of the female teachers and in teaching experience in favor of teachers with long experience. The study proposed some recommendations to improve the science teachers’ attitude, especially male teachers towards science teaching. Paying more attention to in-service professional development programs, encouraging new teachers to attend some classes to observe experienced colleagues, and finally rewarding teachers morally, socially, and financially are some of these recommendations.     

Working-class girls and child-centred pedagogy: what are the implications for developing socially just pedagogy?

Existing international research suggests that widespread performative pedagogy has contributed to producing educational inequalities for ‘disadvantaged’ learners. There have also been calls for alternative pedagogies, which can be characterised as child-centred. This paper analyses pupils’ hierarchical positioning in a contemporary, mixed socio-economic, child-centred classroom using Bernstein’s theory of competence pedagogy and the concept of the ideal pupil. The ideal pupil’s central characteristics were perceived ‘intelligence’ and ‘good humour’, which were closely associated with middle-class boys. Middle-class and working-class girls were positioned against a female ideal pupil, who would take on a supporting role by creating a facilitating environment for boys’ learning. While middle-class girls were moderately successful in approximating these characteristics, working-class girls were positioned at the bottom of the class hierarchy. These findings have implications for these pupils’ self-perceptions, and raise questions about the implications of child-centred pedagogy for social justice.     

Some Remarks on Reading and the Teaching of Reading

Reading is one of the four important skills in English as a secoind or foreign language. However, many teachers often focus attention on grammatical or lexical issues like tenses, sentence structures or verbal idioms, To students reading is the main reason why they learn English. Through reading, our range of kowledge can be broadly widened. However, for a long time, the importance of the teaching of extensive reading has been neglected. This paper aims to give an analysis and my own empirical experience of the teaching of extensive reading. The first part is about the complex nature of reading, the second part dealing with some methods which I have applied in the teaching of reading.     

S.D. Krashen’s Language Acquisition Theory and the Teaching of Business English Reading

This paper first illustrates S.D. Krashen’s language acquisition theory, especially two of his five hypotheses as well as the guidance of these theories towards the teaching of business English reading...     

Between ‘pedagogy’ and ‘Pädagogik’: a critique of lived pedagogy

The present paper is an analysis of the recently formulated concept of Lived Pedagogy. With roots in phenomenology and narrative research and research on ‘student voice’, the concept is coined as a way to research participants’ experience of practical pedagogy in school. The main theoretical and methodological challenges in Lived Pedagogy stem from the use of relational theory (i.e. phenomenology and narrative theory) while a priori maintaining a number of divisions that challenge this relational logic. Having outlined these problems, a suggestion is made to inform Lived Pedagogy by way of the German Pädagogik with its central focus on purpose(s) of education. Specifically, I employ Løvlie’s educational transformation of Habermas’s discourse ethics as a framework for structuring the deliberation of what is educationally desirable.     

S.D. Krashen’s Language Acquisition Theory and the Teaching of Business English Reading

This paper first illustrates S.D. Krashen’s language acquisition theory, especially two of his five hypotheses as well as the guidance of these theories towards the teaching of business English reading for students majored in business English.     

What I ‘Know’: Literary Studies and the Teaching of English

This essay unfolds through a series of juxtapositions, involving storytelling and writing of a more analytical nature. In thinking about what I ‘know’ as an English teacher, my aim has been to present my ideas in a form that might do justice to the contradictions and complexities of my professional life, including my continuing efforts to negotiate a pathway between the rich particularities of the educational settings in which I have worked and my knowledge and values as an English teacher. My primary focus is on how my literary education has shaped and been shaped by my work as an English teacher vis-à-vis a devaluing of teachers’ disciplinary knowledge that has occurred through standards-based reforms. I attempt to make the standpoint from which I am writing an object of scrutiny, thus producing an account of what I ‘know’ that arises out of my work as an English teacher and returns to it as a necessary dimension of a politically committed praxis.