‘Computer games can get your brain working’: student experience and perceptions of digital games in the classroom

There is considerable enthusiasm in many quarters for the incorporation of digital games into the classroom, and the capacity of games to engage and challenge players, present complex representations and experiences, foster collaborative learning, and promote deep learning. But while there is increasing research documenting the progress and outcomes of game-based learning, relatively little attention is paid to student perceptions and voice. In order to effectively target game-based learning pedagogy, it is important to understand students' previous experience, if any, of the use of games in the classroom, and what they made of these. In this paper, we present findings from a survey of 270 primary and secondary school students in Year Levels 4–9 (aged 9–14) in 6 Queensland schools at the start of a 3-year Australian Research Council project researching the use of digital games in school to promote literacy and learning.     

基于核心素养的中学英语文学阅读课程实践与思考

《中国学生发展核心素养》提出"全面发展的人"的培养目标,学科教师要在课程实施中落实学生核心素养的发展。基于核心素养的中学英语文学阅读教学实践从语言学习、认知发展、社会生活三方面促进学生的发展。在语言学习目标层面,学生在准确理解故事文本基础上,通过准确拼读、流利朗读、正确复述、互动讨论、创新表演、创意写作等系列活动,提高语言理解、赏析和创意表达能力;在认知发展层面,学生在语言交流活动中培养思维的逻辑性、批判性和创新性,掌握语言知识学习策略,提升分析和解决问题能力、元认知能力;在社会生活层面,学生通过一系列阅读、思考和创作分享活动,形成正确的人生观、价值观,培养自尊、自信、自强的良好品格,学会做人、做事,提高文明素养和社会责任感。     

Digital literacy,fake news and education / Alfabetización digital,fake news y educación

Abstract

The role of digital literacy in strengthening citizens’ resilience to misinformation and ‘fake news’ has been the subject of research projects and networking and academic and policy discourses in recent years, given prominence by an escalation of the perceived crisis following election and referendum results in the US and UK respectively. This special issue sets out to take forward critical dialogue in the field of media and digital literacy education by publishing rigorous research on the subject. The research disseminated in this collection speaks to the political and economic contexts for ‘fake news’, the complex issue of trust and the risks of educational solutionism; questions of definition and policy implementation; teaching about specific subgenres such as YouTube and clickbait; international comparisons of pedagogic approaches and challenges for teachers in this changing ecosystem.     

地方本科院校英语专业文学素养培养现状调查及教学启示探究

英语专业人才培养应回归其人文属性,学生的文学素养应受到重视。但调查发现,地方性院校在人才培养方案的制订时,文学类课程受到不断压缩;而且,迫于课时限制,知识性内容占据大量课堂时间。与此同时,经过一年的文学课程之后,学生的文学知识呈现爆发式增长,文学阅读兴趣高昂。但是,学生没有养成良好的文学阅读习惯,阅读兴趣未能转化为阅读行为,文学素养状况依然不容乐观。因此,教师应改变固化观念,拓展教学深度,增强文学审美体验。     

媒介素养教育与大学英语课程的整合研究

媒介素养是信息社会的重要能力。在我国当前尚未形成有效的媒介素养教育体系的形式下,大学英语学科与媒介素养教育进行整合具有诸多优势。本研究通过质性分析和量化分析相结合的方法,对媒介素养与大学英语课程整合的教学实践结果进行了分析探讨。研究证明,大学英语课程与媒介素养教育整合的教学方式能有效提高学生的媒介素养能力,在当前环境下不失为高校开展媒介素养教育的一个有效途径。该研究也反映出学生媒介素养水平偏低的现状,需要引起有关人士的重视。     

‘The Rag-bag of All the Subjects’: English in a London Grammar School, 1945–1963

Evidence from a recent study of English teaching in three London schools in the post-war era suggests that changes to curriculum and pedagogy, commonly attributed by historians to the 1960s, were well underway in the 1950s. Major changes associated with ‘New English’ occurred when teachers began taking the lives and experiences of their pupils as material for English lessons. However, changes in an all-boys grammar school followed a different path. Using oral history methods combined with mixed documentary evidence (including teachers’ records and pupils’ work), we reconstruct the experience – the aims and beliefs – of a left-wing grammar school teacher, and we show how, under the influence of F. R. Leavis and the Scrutiny movement, he made response to literature a central activity at a moment when the place of English was uncertain, and the subject lacked academic prestige.     

Rethinking English in an Age of ‘Standards‐Based Reforms’: a report from the 2011 IFTE conference

This paper reports on the 2011 conference of the International Federation for the Teaching of English (IFTE), drawing out implications for the theory and practice of English studies at a time when ‘standards‐based reform’ movements are affecting the practice of teachers in several countries represented at the conference. Focusing firstly on a study of the impact of these developments in Australia, the paper then gives detailed, evaluative accounts of the other main conference presentations. These relate to the teaching of writing, literature and discourse generally, and offer productive alternatives to contemporary tendencies by demonstrating pedagogy that respects the agency and cultural formation of both teacher and student.     

Fighting baddies and collecting bananas: teachers’ perceptions of games-based literacy learning

This paper discusses how practicing teachers conceptualize commercial off the shelf (COTS) videogames within classroom-based English language arts instruction. Understanding how today’s teachers perceive virtual worlds and videogames as an instructional tool for schema building within literacy development will help researchers better understand ways to structure games-based learning in classroom environments. Data for this study were drawn from case study research of a graduate pilot course focusing on the intersections of virtual worlds, popular culture, and literacy instruction. Findings indicate that a limited understanding of videogames and virtual worlds does not hinder practicing teachers from desiring to create engaging units of study using videogames as a schema building tool. However, teachers feel that using videogames for schema building in the classroom will lead to negative perceptions of how they are viewed as teachers. This is compounded by the perception that they will not receive adequate financial support in the form of professional development from administration, nor will they receive monies for technological support to implement within instruction. However, despite these findings, teachers desire to use games-based learning and implement it as a schema building exercises with their students.     

Authoring the Textual Classroom in Digital Times

This article explores language and literacy teachers’ classroom experiences in a digital age. Drawing on multi‐literacies and new literacy studies frameworks, we use metaphors of classroom as text and teacher as author to build an understanding of the challenges and changes examined in the findings of two separate studies. The teachers were challenged to reconsider conceptions of individual ‘knowers’ and textual authority/authorship in their classrooms and how they engage students critically in an exploration of the word and the world beyond the edges of the page and the walls of the English language arts classroom.     

Problematising problematisation: insights from critical pedagogy in a writing lesson in Bangladesh

Problematisation is the means by which critical pedagogy attempts to destabilise power relations related to gender, race, class, identity etc. Studies in critical pedagogy in language teaching explore different ways of problematisation treating problematisation as classroom practice. However, they do not specifically address the teacher’s struggle in employing problematisation and the learners’ experience with it in classroom settings. Hence the complexity of problematisation remains neglected in research in critical pedagogy in classroom contexts. This article explores the notion of problematisation through an analysis of a writing lesson involving undergraduate students in Bangladesh. It analyses both the teacher’s and a student’s encounters with and reflections on problematisation throughout the lesson, and reveals that problematisation embodies complexities, and is empowering when it is self-reflexive.