Language,learning and the curriculum

Teaching about controversial and topical and political issues has consistently been a difficult area for primary teachers, with many worrying about their professional role. Drawing on recent research and curriculum innovation this paper suggests that there are three key areas to be addressed if we are to allay these concerns: the teacher's role in handling controversial issues, appropriate teaching strategies and opportunities in the primary curriculum for addressing controversy and political issues. It suggests possible approaches and gives two extended examples of lessons for the primary classroom.     

Language science in the tertiary curriculum

The goal of linguistics has been in dispute since its origin as a scientific discipline. The situation remains confused and consequently the curricular position of linguistics is ambiguous. An examination of the historical reasons for this indicates the following conclusions: At the time when language was first proposed as a subject for scientific study the natural sciences were still dominated by the mechanical model of Newtonian physics; this attitude of mind has inhibited the development of linguistics.Further development ought logically to depend on the harmonisation of linguistics with modern scientific concepts, such as relativity, probability, system and field. Such a move would constitute in part a new goal for linguistics. If such an innovation is admitted, those areas where language study overlaps with other subjects, e.g. psychology, logic and anthropology, provide natural exit points for a study of language and the epistemology of science.Linguistics is therefore capable of serving as a foundational discipline in a liberal arts curriculum. Its particular claim to assume this role lies in the fact that language is the object of both humanistic and scientific study. Hence to give linguistics a more central role in the tertiary curriculum offers a fundamental educational benefit in narrowing the cultural gap between the arts and science, and it is worth considering a change of emphasis in the curriculum to achieve this end.The aim of this paper is not to suggest detailed changes but to stimulate discussion of this consideration.     

Social difference,cultural arbitrary and identity: An analysis of a new national curriculum document in a non-secular environment

This article focuses on the idea of the Curriculum as a 'selection from the cultures of society' and as a site of contestation for legitimacy and identity affirmation. The purpose is to shed some light on the nature of curricular reform being advocated in a specific context - Malta. Throughout the past four years, there has been a revamping of the National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) document in Malta, established in 1988. The 'old' National Minimum Curriculum was subject to criticism focusing on a variety of issues (echoing criticisms levelled at similar National Curricula elsewhere), including issues concerning difference and identity. The first part of the article deals briefly with the issues concerning difference raised in this criticism, focusing on the issues of class, race/ethnicity, gender and disability. The second part focuses on the long and gradual build up towards the development of the new National Curriculum document. The process centres around two documents, the preliminary Tomorrow's Schoolsdocument and the draft NMC document. The issues of equity and the affirmation of social difference, as well as the move towards de-streaming, are discussed. It is argued that this process of reform benefited from the criticism of the earlier NMC document. The process of reform involved an attempt at widespread participation by various stakeholders - parents, teachers, students, unions, women's organisations, disabled person's organisations etc. The final section focuses on the final new NMC document. In this section, the authors explore the compromises, which have been made in reaction to the draft document, indicating the interests at play. Whose cultural arbitrary is reflected in the final document? The article concludes with a discussion centring around lessons to be drawn from a process of curricular reform, involving issues related to identity and difference, carried out in a country characterised by a non-secular environment.     

新课程背景下初中语文作文教学障碍分析及其应对策略

在初中语文教学体系中作文教学具有十分重要的地位,在一定程度上已经发展成为衡量初中学生语文应用水平的重要标准。因此,在文将探讨新课程背景下初中语文作文教学中存在的障碍,进而在此基础上提出应对策略,目的在于有效促进初中语文作文教学质量的提高,进而提高中学生的写作应用能力。     

Aboriginal studies and the science curriculum: Affective outcomes from a curriculum intervention

The study of Aboriginal culture in schools is supported by an increasing number of educators and government committees. However, in the absence of substantial research evidence, it has been difficult to propose justifiable curricular recommendations. The results of this exploratory study suggest that student attitudes towards Aborigines and Aboriginal culture can be improved by a science program which features an Aboriginal Studies component. Further, it is suggested that there is scope for the development of up-to-date curriculum materials and more comprehensive studies. Specializations: science education, teaching thinking. Specializations: science education, curriculum theory and design, teacher development.     

学科活动课程：课程改革的新趋向

一、新视角——学科活动课程是素质教育的有效载体素质教育是我国迎接２１世纪综合国力竞争的必然要求，也是基础教育改革的既定方向。然而，在许多中小学，素质教育喊得惊天动地，“应试教育”却抓得扎扎实实，学生在活动课程中朝气蓬勃，到学科课程上却死气沉沉。基础教育如何真正实现从“应试教育”向素质教育转轨这是许多人都在思考的问题。我认为素质教育不能只有一句口号性要求，必须找到切实有效的载体。在现实的教育环境下，只有把它落实到学科课程，落实到教材改革，落实到课堂教学，落实到学业评价中去，才能得到真正实施。最近颁…     

Language for the Global Economy: Some curriculum fundamentals and pedagogical practices in the colonial educational enterprise

The paper provides an example of contrivances undertaken to establish English as the language of the global economy. Trinidad and Tobago is the location chosen, and the late colonial period is the time frame used to demonstrate how the 'project' worked. The paper focuses upon some curricular and pedagogic practices used to transmit and fortify English as the language of communication, and is classroom based. What took place at ground level, so to speak, and within the framework of a major formal institution, the colonial elementary school, is examined. Three theoretical frames are engaged: selected aspects of language learning theory as these relate to reading in particular, pedagogical content knowledge and hermeneutics. The analysis reveals that classroom practices were orchestrated to cement and fortify an English language base in Trinidad and Tobago during the period under study, and to guarantee the use of English for all time. The strategies used included appropriate packaging of content, exclusiveness in selection and use of textual (British) material, pre-occupation with the 'grammar syndrome', indoctrination into British culture, and transmission of the ideology that success in 'school English' was a touchstone for induction into 'the good life'. The paper concludes that the job of securing the already established English-language base in Trinidad and Tobago was a diligent masterpiece. The colonizer 'played a good number' upon the colonized in Trinidad and Tobago, so much so that the present exclusive use of English in that country is seen as irreversible, unlike the situation in some other post-colonial states.     

Reframing the curriculum: a transformative approach

ABSTRACT

While acknowledging higher education’s complicity in inequality, the premise of this paper is that curriculum transformation can be one means of challenging and dismantling structural injustices towards the goal of equity of access and outcomes. Fraser’s multi-dimensional framework for social justice is drawn upon to explore what this transformation requires. The framework is used to critique a particular case of curriculum intervention, Education Development in South Africa. In Fraser’s terms, the interventions have been largely affirmative, not transformative. In addition, they have focused on only the first dimension of justice, redistribution, and have generally failed to attend to misrecognition and representation. Overall, we argue that the responses of higher education institutions in South Africa to the challenges of a globalised, pluralist world have been affirmative, not transformative. A transformative approach demands a ‘reframing’ of the curriculum. This involves adjusting the scale of the problem, interrogating assumptions informing the norms of the curriculum, questioning current boundaries between ‘mainstream’ and ‘other’ students and reviewing the fitness of the curriculum for a pluralist society. The paper concludes with recommendations for what such a reframing of the curriculum might entail.     

Learner agency and the curriculum: a critical realist perspective

Abstract

Agency, understood as the capacity to act independently and to make one’s own choices, is considered central to children’s development. Thus, education, and hence education curricula, have a role in the development of learner agency. While curriculum development is a key focus for educational theory, research, policy, and classroom practice, the potential implications of curriculum content selections for learner agency remain underexplored. Theoretically, this paper engages with critical realism, explaining how it can provide theoretical foundation for a more comprehensive view of learner agency and, by implication, more balanced curricula. Empirically, the paper draws on the findings from a content analysis of the national curriculum documents of four countries with relatively high scores in international comparative tables, England, Australia, Hong-Kong, and Canada, to develop a new typology of primary curricula. Based on the extent of emphasis placed on knowledge versus skills, values, and attitudes, three types of curricula were identified: knowledge-based, skills-oriented, and learner-centred. Due to its significant theoretical and practical influence globally, we focus on the knowledge-based model and its likely impact on students’ agency. We conclude by highlighting the importance of making learner agency a key orientation of the curriculum and suggesting directions for future research.     

自主课程:课程新视域论纲

自主课程是在当代社会条件下和学校教育框架内,学生个体自主学习与自由发展的课程。它是学生依据个人的状况,自主确定学习目标、自行选择学习内容、自主决定学习进程与方式、自我评价与管理,以实现自我发展的个性化课程。自主课程的产生有其必然性、必要性和可行性。自主课程的构建向度体现在:价值向度是对自由、解放与人权的诉求;目标与功能向度是个性发展与个人化;内容向度是以个体发展为圆心;实施向度是以学生自主学习为主;管理向度是自主决策、设计与评价。它是实现人类充分、自由发展和全面、个性发展的教育理想与社会理想的一种设想和尝试。     

Toward a scientific pedagogy of learning disabilities: a sameness in the message

The development of a scientific pedagogy of learning disabilities as called for by Kirk and Bateman (1962) requires the rendering of a science of learning disabilities and a pedagogy derived from that science. But such a pedagogy is necessarily incomplete if it fails to recognize that the structure of the curriculum significantly shapes the act of teaching students identified as learning disabled. The current thinking about curricula is that the universe of information that a curriculum program comprises need only be organized around subject area topics (e.g., mathematics, reading, language arts, science, social studies) and hierarchically arranged in a scope and sequence that has as its main characteristic the general ordering of skills from simple to complex. For all practical purposes, information is viewed as raw material (Kaufman et al., 1990) that can be nominally organized and readily packaged. The information is then consumed as curriculum that requires little or no transformation of its form or structure. The articles in this series of the Journal of Learning Disabilities provide examples of how transforming information by identifying and developing curricula around structural samenesses can lead to a pedagogy that is efficient and effective. The development of a scientific pedagogy of learning disabilities requires that the field acknowledge the importance of curriculum structure and the complexity of information. The field must also examine the intricacies of designing curricula with the same kind of commitment and passion it has demonstrated in the last 30 years in investigating the etiology and organic basis of learning disabilities.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

自主课程:生命教育的重要课程载体

"生命教育"与"自主课程",二者存在一种必然的联系和内在逻辑关系.自主课程的特征高度体现了生命教育的理念,自主课程的内容体系又集中体现了生命教育的内涵和价值追求,自主课程是生命教育的重要课程载体.