An Australian Proposal for Doing Critical Literacy Assessment: The Case of Writing

In this article we present current thinking and practices in Queens land, Australia, about how to do critical literacy assessment in the English classroom. In taking this focus, we propose and discuss a framework that brings together interest in text analysis and social practices. Then, we apply the framework showing how it can be used to generate writing tasks and assessment criteria that are consistent with critical pedagogy. Finally, the challenges of moving to a socially critical, discourse‐oriented approach to assessment are considered.     

对外语学习低龄热的冷思考

我国外语教学呈低龄化趋势。然而低龄儿童外语教学在师资、教材、学习时间、语言环境、学习动机、学习效果等方面并不尽如人意,导致了低龄儿童外语学习的高成本、低效益。外语教学从小抓起的主要理论支持是“临界期”理论,然而大量的试验、实践证明,外语学习的起始年龄和外语最终成就没有直接关系。在中国目前的国情下,不重视实际情况,盲目地地提前外语学习的起始年龄,尚无理论和实践数据对此进行支持。所以无论从理论上、还是从实践上考虑,“外语学习低龄化”需谨慎行之。     

Questioning to the Feasibility of Offering English Courses in the Primary Schools in China

After entering 21st century, our country has started an incomparable huge English teaching revolution. English has been taught in more and more universities, colleges, high schools, and even primary sc...     

Transforming practice in Design and Technology: evidence from a classroom-based research study of students' responses to an intervention on inclusive design

This article offers evidence from a classroom-based research study in English secondary schools which developed an innovative approach to teaching in Design and Technology based on inclusive design (also known as universal design). The research evidence highlights how creative, problem-solving approaches in Design and Technology can be used to provide authentic, engaging learning experiences for students. This study, entitled ‘Designing our Tomorrows', introduced secondary school teachers and students to the principles and practices of inclusive design through an intervention using specially designed resources. In this article, findings from the study's qualitative pre- and post-intervention interviews are presented to illustrate how this type of approach can stimulate students' creativity and understanding of design.     

Equitable Classroom Assessment: Promoting Self-Development and Self-Determination

Assessment of students’ learning in school is deeply implicated in teaching for social justice. Yet classroom assessment is neglected relative to other aspects of curriculum and pedagogy in the literature on teaching for social justice. Some books have a relatively clear theory of anti-oppression education at their core but do not provide details about the links between assessment and their anti-oppression theory, while others provide a more detailed view of assessment practices but do not specify precisely how particular assessment strategies either promote or hinder anti-oppression education. This article provides a theoretical framework that spotlights key links between teaching for social justice and classroom assessment. To illustrate these connections, we draw on guided group discussions with ten high school social studies and English teachers, interested in pursuing professional development in this area. We conceptualize assessment as a set of institutional processes with the potential either to inhibit or nurture the development of young people as well as their capacity for self-determination. We analyze: (a) how teachers, through various assessment practices, can attempt to enable equitable relations within and beyond the classroom; and (b) performance standards aimed at helping teachers assess their students’ progress toward becoming more socially responsible and, ultimately, more self-determining. We conclude that even as teachers struggle to enact more socially just assessment practices, they need to communicate clearly with students and parents about what constitutes equitable assessment and what institutional practices, by contrast, sow seeds of self-doubt and lead to destructive labeling, ranking, and gate keeping.     

英美文学的电化教学:从传统教学走向网络化的尝试性探讨

传统英美文学教学所暴露的问题在一定程度上表明,这种教学已很难满足课程要求与学习者的需要．多媒体计算机辅助英美文学教学具有的优势较好地弥补了传统外语教学所带来的不足,为现代外语教学开辟了一个新途径．文章提出了文学课教学改革的尝试性的探讨,即演示型教学,网络交互式教学,虚拟现实教学等。     

Living Un/Grammatically in a Grammatical World: The Pedagogic World of Teachers and Students

In my work with preservice teachers I face daily a dilemma. My student-teachers come to me with an urgent practical agenda: What do I need to know in order to survive in the world of school? In effect they want me to tell them how to fit into a world that they assume is structured like a grammar, with traditions and conventions and rules and patterns. They are seeking ways to conform to the pedagogic world as it has been written, but I hope they will seek ways to transform the pedagogic world, always written and always in the process of being written. I hope my student-teachers will seek ways to write, actively and deliberately and imaginatively, the pedagogic world of students and teachers. I want them to learn to live un/grammatically, to challenge the ways in which the world has been written for them, to know that they are not only written by the world, but that they also write the world. I invite my students to write the unwritten sentences, the sentences that interrogate and subvert syntax and semantics, the sentences that create spaces where my students can live un/grammatically.