L'Expression Libre pour L'Acquisition des Langues

We all learn language. This does not mean, however, that we have a clear‐cut picture of how the language learning process takes place, nor what it looks like. Over the centuries implicitly or explicitly we have used theories of language learning and consequently theories of teaching them. One such theory which has its roots in the past is the basis of the free oral expression approach. In this approach, the learner and his acquisition process are the centre of the teacher's interventions. Logically such an approach entails consequences for the training and education of language teachers.     

A User Interface Design for a Video-on-demand Service Trial in an Educational Setting

Video-on-demand (VOD) is one of a series of emerging interactive broadband services. VOD provides users with the capability to access a vast variety of interactive programmes on demand, and give them full VCR-like control over their programme selections. This paper presents and describes a user interface that was designed for a business VOD service trial operated by Stentor, which began in January 1994, at two universities in Ottawa, Canada. It describes the service architecture and trial setting, as well as presents some trial results. Finally, some recommendations based on these results, and future enhancements to the VOD user interface, are described.     

On the importance of the relationship to knowledge in science education

Cultural Studies of Science Education - This forum paper is a reflection about the paper written by Valérie Frède and illustrates how it influences my work as a Ph.D. student in...     

Asking students to be active learners: the effects of totally or partially self-generating a graphic organizer on students’ learning performances

Instructional Science - We compared performances on a learning task in which students (N?=?81) viewed a pedagogical multimedia document without (control group) or with a readymade...     

Applying the ECTS System to the Childhood Education Teaching Degree in Andalusia

This article presents the research conducted as part of a Pilot Experiment regarding the application of the ECTS to the Childhood Education Teaching Degree taught at the University of Cordoba (Spain). It analyses the Experiment, which was carried out in the Education Faculty over the course of three academic years (2004/05, 2005/06 and 2006/07). The research questions were: (1) How much do the students taking part in the Pilot Experiment know about the different competences? (2) How much time do the students need to prepare each subject? and (3) What are the methodological skills used by lecturers as a means of improving autonomous learning? Several tools were used: Initial Student Assessment for the ECTS Pilot Experiment in Childhood Education, and three Likert Scales: a) Competence Assessment Scale for UCO's Childhood Education Teaching Degree, b) Competence Achievement Assessment Scale for UCO's Childhood Education Teaching Degree, c) Assessment Scale for Subject Methodology in relation to the Application of ECTS and the organisation of Focus Groups. The most important conclusions were: (1) The specific professional competences established in the educational profile of this degree course are very highly rated by the students; (2) According to the students, the workload for certain subjects, in terms of the number of hours devoted to them, is excessively high and not proportional to the number of credits they account for, and (3) There has been an acceptable level of exchange among teaching staff regarding the instruments and methodological strategies used to promote students' autonomous work.     

The Accelerating Roles of Higher Education in Regions through the European Lifelong Learning Initiative

This article assesses the network development and promotion of the learning region model in HEIs in the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), focusing on quality, partnership and social equality in the Hungarian context. It argues that the learning city-region model can be used and put into practice in many different ways for a new learning climate to occur, as in the case of the Pécs Learning City-Region Forum. However, there are parallel ways to implement the model for HEIs. The first is a purely economically centred one for those HEIs that reflect a reformed social identity to serve mainly employability, economic productivity and innovation through education and research in post socialist countries. The second is more holistic, reflecting not only education and research, but also making use of innovation based on economic and social partnership and networking in local, regional, national and international contexts. The article elaborates on the opportunities for this model as one into which Hungarian HEIs may develop.     

Truth in numbers? Emancipation,race, and federal census statistics in the debates over Black mental health in the United States, 1840–1900

To the keen observer of American political and medical history, a disturbing set of debates surrounded the sanity of free Black residents of the United States of America after the publication of the controversial 1840 census returns on race and insanity. This article analyzes how the census became a battlefield where physicians and other commentators fought over—and thus shaped—various political meanings of Black insanity before and after the American Civil War, up until the 1890s, as the South underwent a massive political and social transformation, from slavery to emancipation. It also highlights the arguments raised by authors such as James McCune Smith and Ramón de la Sagra who attempted to disprove the returns shortly after their publication, and whose arguments contributed to efforts to combat scientific racism.     

Predicting stereotype endorsement and academic motivation in women in science programs: A longitudinal model

This study proposed and tested a model based on stereotype threat theory. The hypothesis is that women who are exposed to a low percentage of women in a science program are more likely to endorse the gender stereotype that science is a male domain, which will in turn undermine their autonomous academic motivation. A total of 167 women university students enrolled in science programs participated in an 18-month longitudinal study. Results partially support our model. Although the low percentage of females in science programs was related to endorsement of the gender stereotype, there was no effect of prior stereotype endorsement on subsequent autonomous academic motivation.     

On the Meeting of the Moral and the Aesthetic in Literary Education

For millennia it has been discussed whether literature appropriately can or should be used in education for a moral purpose. Taking as a premise that it can actually be educative and not merely moralising, we tackle the case made against such use, based on the claim that it would be perverting the aesthetic nature of literature as a form of art, as it would be instrumentalised. Given that this claim is based on a dichotomy between an aesthetically educative approach and a morally educative approach to literature, we examine how warranted such a formulation of this dichotomy is. We argue that, at least on some occasions, those two educative approaches to literature—the aesthetic and the moral—can actually be mutually reinforcing in such a way that aesthetic appreciation will suffer if the moral is not deeply examined with both mind and heart, and vice versa. This does not mean, however, that this relation of mutual contribution will always obtain in a neat way. It may actually be the case that just in a few cases, and only if carried out in a pedagogically appropriate manner, it will be correct to use literature with a morally educative purpose.