Mixed messages in learning to teach english

Two teachers and a university professor engaged in a joint analysis of data generated while the three worked together in a student teacher/methods instructor and supervisor relationship. They each discuss the images of teaching they brought with them to the student teaching context and how those images influenced their perceptions of the semesters' events, with attention to the mixed messages that were constructed. Following the separate discussions, they write together about the possible implications of their work for other student teachers and university based teacher education.     

Mixed messages: the role and value of drawing in early education

Current English curriculum documents, namely the Practice Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum, contain mixed messages about the role and value of drawing in early education. The documents state that children should be encouraged to explore their ideas, feelings and experiences through a range of means, including drawing, but drawing as a form of communication is predominantly seen as a pre‐writing skill. In the National Curriculum drawing exists as an element of the programme of study for art and design. However, it is argued here that presenting drawing as ‘art’ in the early years conveys a limited view of its place in children’s learning. Young children have many motivations for drawing for different purposes and in different contexts. These different purposes and contexts need recognition in both policy and practice.     

Mixed messages: discourses of education in policy speeches to the Japanese Diet

This paper will examine how Japanese education policy was articulated discursively from 1996 to 2010 in the semi-annual speeches of prime ministers to the Diet. It will identify three distinct discourses within these policy statements: a progressive discourse emphasizing the rights of individuals; a neo-liberal discourse of social independence and multi-tracked schooling; and a moral conservative discourse of patriotism and social conformism. In the 1990s, progressive and neo-liberal discourses held sway. Discursively, they were centred on key phrases such as kosei jūshi (“respect for individuality”) and sōzōsei (creativity), which were employed in a strategically ambiguous way to satisfy both progressive and neo-liberal demands. In the 2000s, however, right-wing politicians began to push a moral conservative agenda, which emphasized not the rights of individuals but their subservience to the wider needs of society and state. With neo-liberalism backed by powerful business interests, policymakers had to find a way to reconcile these two conflicting viewpoints discursively. They did this by binding the concept of individuality to traditional notions of Japanese identity and national citizenship, creating a hybrid discourse that attempted to blur the fundamental difference in ideologies.     

Mixed messages and missed opportunities: Moments of transformation in writing conferences and teacher education

This article describes our challenge as teacher educators interested in helping our students move beyond talk about text that recalls facts to talk that is supportive of the interpretation and crafting of text. This case study describes how one teacher candidate struggled with the question, “When am I teaching?” as she attempted to reconcile what she always thought teaching was with these new ways of talking about text. A sociolinguistic analysis of one of Maureen's writing conferences illustrates the power of traditional classroom talk, the potential for transforming that talk, and ways we as teacher educators can support that transformation.     

短信献给党

春风送来了温暖党恩,旭日带来了富民国政,明月记载了科学发展,星火孕育了和谐幸福。党的生日即将来临,祝国富民强、蒸蒸日上!常唱红歌,精神振奋努力工作;细读经典,品味思考提升     

Deaf children's referential messages to mother

Deaf children 6-10 years of age, from oral or bimodal educational programs, were tested in 2 tasks. In the first, they were required to describe a designated picture from a set of 4 pictures so that their mother could identify the intended referent from the 4 alternatives. In the second, they studied a single picture and were subsequently required to identify it from a set of 4 related pictures. Despite greater hearing loss, bimodally educated children provided more differentiated messages than did orally educated children. Bimodally educated children also provided better reformulations of messages that were initially inadequate. Although mothers of orally educated children received inferior messages, they were as successful at selecting the correct referent as were mothers of bimodally educated children. Both groups of deaf children performed at near perfect levels on the picture recognition task, suggesting that performance differences were attributable to differential message formulation skill as opposed to differential visual processing of the referential array.     

手机短信挑战高校德育

非理性因素是中学政治课教学中不可忽视的重要因素，是自主学习的内在含义之一。本文从为何要重视中学生的非理性因素，如何发挥非理性因素在自主学习中的作用，以及在实际教学过程中可能出现的误区这三方面，进行了初步论述。     

《胎记》中的多重主题和现实寓意

一直以来,霍桑的小说以其巧妙的构思,奇特的题材,丰富象征的多种可能,引人深思的各种主题和时代意义而被读者喜欢抑或不喜欢着,而一个多世纪以来的读者们似乎也无法穷尽他小说中的各种隐藏主题。拿《胎记》为例,笔者试图从读者接受和叙事学角度挖掘其表面寓意下的更为丰富和深刻的主题意义来说明霍桑笔下的艺术品拥有怎样的艺术魅力。     

Crossing uncertain terrain: messages from male academics

In this paper, comments made by a group of senior male academics in Australian universities about their leadership behaviours, are considered. Whereas the majority of the men in the study spoke about gender relations, and sometimes feminism in their workplaces, only two of the men engaged in discourses of gender and/or feminism, as well as actively practising and supporting pro‐feminist principles in their workplaces. For a further four men, who even though they utilised gender‐related discourses, there was dissonance with their work practices. It is speculated that fears of feminism, masculinity and of litigation may be possible explanations as to why several of the men grappled with the personal challenges of what it means to be situated in the ‘uncertain terrain’ of publicly espousing support for feminism whilst not wanting to lose their positioning as a male in a patriarchal system.     

Visual messages: Making sense with young children

Whether we know it or not, the environment teaches children how to read. The symbols, pictures, and print in our classrooms are a foundation for later reading. Children need useful and practical information communicated through visual messages.Sandra L. Gordon and Beth C. Anderson are Associate Professors in the Education Department at Moorhead State University in Minnesota.     

娱乐类手机短信的语言魅力

娱乐类手机短信已成为一种流行的文化现象,其实质在于幽默和独特的语篇特征。本文首先探讨了后现代主义思潮的实质及其特征,在此基础上,从功能语言学的视角分析了娱乐类手机短信的概念意义、人际意义和语篇意义,以求揭示这类手机短信的语言魅力。     

Effects of motivational and volitional email messages (MVEM) with personal messages on undergraduate students' motivation, study habits and achievement

This study investigated what kind of supportive information can be effective in improving the situation where there were severe motivational challenges. Motivational and volitional email messages (MVEM) were constructed based on an integrated model of four theories and methods, which are Keller's ARCS model, Kuhl's action control theory, Gollwitzer's Rubicon model of motivation and volition, and Visser & Keller's strategy of motivational messages, and distributed with personal messages created based on audience analysis to a large undergraduate class. In order to examine the effects of the messages on motivation for the course, study habits (study time), and achievement (test grade), MVEM were sent to 30 students (Personal Message Group: PMG) with personal messages and to 71 students (Non‐Personal Message Group: NonPMG) without personal messages. Results indicated that PMG showed a higher level of motivation, especially in regard to confidence, than NonPMG. Also, the mean test grade of PMG increased so that the initial difference of the test grade between the two groups significantly decreased. Although there was no difference between the two groups in study habits, the findings suggest that personal messages addressing specific individual problems raise the positive effects of MVEM constructed based on the integrated model. Future research directions are discussed.     

狂欢化：手机短信的话语方式

根据巴赫金狂欢化理论,手机短信具有以下狂欢化话语方式：戏仿手法,即把所有严肃形式通过滑稽模仿予以降格处理的艺术形式;加冕——脱冕,这是狂欢节上的一种重要仪式,体现在短信上即一切都处于更新之中,避免陷入沉闷与僵化;广场语言,表现在手机短信上就是语言杂糅、褒贬融合、雅俗混杂的言语风格。手机短信借助以上表现形式可以抹平崇高与鄙俗、庄重与滑稽、精神与肉体、人与物等的区别,充分彰显其作为时尚媒体的娱乐功能。     

Student perceptions of hidden messages in teacher written feedback

Students take away a variety of messages from teachers’ responses to their writing, although not all the information conveyed is explicit or related to the work at hand. In fact, both the content of this feedback and the ways they respond can lead students to interpret their tutors’ beliefs about their subject, about learning, and about the value of literacy in their disciplines. Drawing on a series of interviews with 24 first and second year students at a Hong Kong university, this paper seeks to identify what these messages are and the consequences they can have for students’ attitudes to their field of study, to disciplinary writing, to learning and to teacher–student relationships.