学中用,用中学—初中英语语法教学策略

英语语法教学是初中英语教学的一个重要组成部分,是贯穿于学生英语学习的一条主线,其学习质量直接影响着学生对于英语的理解,进而对学生的英语阅读和作文的学习产生影响。本文就如何提高初中英语语法教学质量提出了一些教学策略,以期指导初中英语语法教学更好地开展。     

Partners in Learning—educators,practitioners and students collaborate on work‐based learning—a case study

Work‐based learning is incorporated into a wide range of undergraduate courses that emphasise education for the professions. Yet, there is a lack of literature examining successful models that are structured around the principles of experiential learning. Partners in Learning (PAL) is a 12‐month, part‐time internship developed for Library and Information Studies students at the University of Canberra. Now in its fourth year, PAL is judged successful by students, mentors and academics alike. In this article, PAL is examined in relation to a model of experiential learning. Elements of successful work‐based experience are identified in published literature and related to “best practices” underlying the PAL model. Implications for educators introducing such a model are highlighted.     

Tomorrow is another day——读《飘》有感

本期上架:《飘》作者:[美]玛格丽特·米切尔译者:李美华出版社:译林出版社出版时间:2008年1月每每去图书馆借书,总不会去看《飘》,它很显眼但让我很害怕,因为它的厚度。第一次决定让《飘》离开书架是在观看了电影《乱世佳人》之后,近4个小时的电影正如其近千页的著书,只要你开始迈入,开始欣赏,其长度或者说厚度便让你的胆怯之情消失殆尽。我向来最怕看外国名著,难记的人名、多线的人物关系以及复杂的故事情节,总是让自己放弃接受外国著作熏陶的机会。不过,《飘》是除《巴黎圣母院》之外,又一本让我喜欢上     

Youth,skills development,and work in the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2012: Learning from Asia or for Asia?

The article underlines the historic importance of the treatment of skills development, finally, by the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) team. Among the many challenges in its analysis are the multiple and overlapping meanings of the word skill, and the consequent difficulties of quantifying and monitoring efforts at skills development. The positioning of skills development within secondary education is a further area of huge diversity and contestation. Beyond this, the claimed relationships between skills and growth require careful teasing out. As important as any, however, are the relations amongst skills, work, and employment (and unemployment) in both the urban and rural informal sectors. The article argues that although GMR 2012 breaks a great deal of new ground in addressing skills development, it ends up being rather a school-based account of skill; very little attention is given to post-school skills development in the further education and training colleges of many societies. Equally, it underplays the impact of the wider macroeconomic environment on skills development. Finally, the article suggests that much can be learned from Asia, as well as for Asia, in this crucial world of skills development.     

Learning for work and working to learn： Challenges within a changing UK higher education system

Higher education in the United Kingdom is currently undergoing major changes. In the foreseeable future, it will also undergo farther change. The nature of these changes can be attributed to several key areas-government demand for change, industry demand for change and student demand for change. The UK, like many other major economies and not for the first time in recent history, is having to face the implications of severe skills shortages in its workforce, coupled with the increasing competitiveness of more globalised workforees and workplaces. A recent major government report has set out the country＇s skills agenda until 2020 and UK higher education is starting to wrestle with the implications of these changes, some of which challenge the traditional preserves of university education. This paper will focus on the implications of these skills shortages and the impact that is having on UK higher education. In particular, reference will be made to the impact of the new 2 years vocational Foundation Degrees, to the shift from supply-led to demand-led higher education, the increasing integration and tensions of work-based learning and to the accreditation of Continuous Professional Development （CPD） within an academic framework. This paper presents one story of the growing and changing relationship between higher education and industry.     

Learning for state‐building: capacity development,education and fragility

This paper examines capacity development in education in fragile contexts. This is a current concern for donors and development partners, but there has been little work on the nexus between capacity, education and fragility. The paper examines the concept of fragility and the particular problems in education associated with fragile contexts. The key argument – and tension – is that the focus should be on restoring state functions, yet this may be in a context of severe difficulties for donor agencies or NGOs of aligning with the government. The paper outlines some of the choices to be made in deciding on a focus for capacity development in education, examining the levels for intervention (individual, organisational, cultural and political) and the different sectors (administration and education institutions). It provides examples of the different sorts of areas in capacity development in education arenas that would address specific features of fragility, but draws attention to the need for research and indicators of the different impact of these strategies. The paper concludes with an analysis of what appears to be necessary to ensure that capacity development efforts are sustainable.     

The differences between novels and films——Enhance literature teaching by using films

Many films are based on novels. However, each of them uses different ways to tell the similar stories. The paper discusses the differences from several aspects in terms of their nature, ways of narration, as well as the effect they bring about. It mainly focuses on the special benefits of using films in English language teaching. Finally, a sample film-based activity which could be used to enhance language classroom is illustrated.     

“Your career will be over”—Power and contradictions in the work of educational evaluators

The aim of this research was to study professional evaluators’ experiences of power relations and contradictory issues in the evaluation processes. Utterances concerning power and contradictions were extracted by close reading of the transcribed interviews of 15 Finnish experienced evaluators. The evaluators described contradictions in the evaluator's role, in the reduced perspective of interest groups and in the cross-draughts of methodical choices. They articulated the tensions caused by personal relations, weak knowledge of criteria, focus of reporting, and the use of evaluation results. Evaluators talked about power as the use of expertise, as interactive relations, as a fight for positions, as a reporting responsibility, and as knowledge management.     

All work and no play? The effects of ability sorting on students’ non-school inputs,time use,and grade anxiety

How students’ non-school inputs respond to ability grouping may explain the currently mixed findings in the literature about the impacts of tracking. Using data from South Korea, where students are randomized into middle schools under the country's equalization policy, but sorted into different high schools on the basis of achievement in some non-equalization policy areas, I find that under ability sorting, students’ demand for private tutoring, self-study time, and grade anxiety levels are lower, and their hours of sleep and leisure are higher. The effects on private tutoring are particularly significant for high achievers, while the effects on self-study and leisure hours are strong for low achievers. The results potentially help reconcile the mixed findings in the ability grouping and tracking literature.     

Young children’s classification,stereotyping and play behaviour for gender neutral and ambiguous toys

Developmental intergroup theory would predict that children develop fewer or weaker stereotypes about toys that have less distinguishable gender attributes than those that are clearly associated with a gender. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of neutral and ambiguous toys in 31 three‐ to five‐year‐old children’s play behaviour and understanding about gender. Overall, children did not categorise more perceptually salient (ambiguous) toys than less distinguishable (neutral) toys to their own gender. Colour was the most frequently used reason for the toys’ gender assignment. The findings also showed that with age, girls’ play complexity increased linearly, whereas boys’ scores did not. A play substitution scale measuring play creativity or maturity showed no gender differences. The discussion highlights the role of perceptual salience in sex‐dimorphic toy preferences and behaviour and their application to educational issues.     

Metacognition, Self Regulation, and Self-regulated Learning: A Rose by any other Name?

This commentary reviews the distinctions researchers make in defining metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning along with the methods used to explore these constructs. Bandura’s notion of reciprocal determinism (1977) is revisited in the context of situated learning, whereby interactions between the person, behavior, and environment take on new meaning when examining learning and affect in specific contexts where knowledge is constructed through interacting with all that the environment affords, be that material or human. The interaction between the mind and environment continues to be an interesting question with regard to these three constructs, and this interaction can be explored by using computers as cognitive tools. Technology-rich environments are described that provide opportunities for assessing and validating metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning with future directions for assessing co-regulation of teams of learners.     

What Facilitates and Supports Political Activism by,and for,Undocumented Students?

Historically, undocumented students have been unable to attend public and private institutions of higher education in the United States. Lack of citizenship and/or financial aid precludes many from ever applying to college or other post-secondary institutions. This can create feelings of oppression, stigmatization, and/or inferiority for undocumented youth, who had no say in their ever coming to the United States. In the absence of a sustainable federal law that facilitates higher education attainment for this population, some states have enacted their own permissive policies. The present study utilizes a critical consciousness framework and a constant comparative approach to explore one permissive policy in a focal state. To this end, the authors attempt to answer the question of what motivates undocumented students, through the lens of critical consciousness, to engage in political activism, and what is the role of adult-allies? Findings support and extend our understanding of critical consciousness dimensions, vis-à-vis the revelation of ten themes and subthemes unique to this sample. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are also discussed.     

Committed for life? Variations in teachers’ work, lives and effectiveness

This paper is based upon a unique mixed methods 4-year research project which focused upon the variations in teachers’ work, lives, and effectiveness of 300 elementary and secondary school teachers in a range of 100 schools across seven regions of England. Its findings challenge linear conceptions of teacher development and expertise and provide new understandings of the effects of personal, school and broader policy contexts upon professional life phase trajectories and teachers’ emotional identities. It finds connections between these and teachers’ commitment, resilience, and effectiveness. This paper discusses these in relation to the school standards and teacher retention agendas.