骏马之选(英文)

作为《纽约时报》最畅销小说之一,《骏马之选》这部纪实文学(nonfiction)讲述了一匹受伤的赛马Lay Me Down如何帮助主人公恢复对生活的信心的感人故事。因为营养不良而虚脱(Weak from malnutntion)的Lay Me Down忍受着种种身体上的痛苦,但仍保持着一颗开朗宽容(open and generous)的心,就这样她来到苏珊身边(then fate brought her into Susan’s paddock),教会她如何拥抱生命的快乐(embrace the joys of life)。下面这一段描写苏珊在看到Lay Me Down之前,回忆了自己小时候养过的一匹小马,表达了无限的思念之情。     

Infant visual sustained attention and respiratory sinus arrhythmia

Infants were studied cross-sectionally at 14, 20, and 26 weeks of age. They were presented with varying and complex patterns on a TV screen. Two-thirds of the presentations were accompanied by an "interrupting stimulus" in the periphery delayed in time from the onset of fixation on the central stimulus. The infants were not easily distracted from looking at the central stimulus when the presentation of the interrupting stimulus occurred at the point of maximal heart rate (HR) deceleration. However, if the presentation occurred at the end of the HR response, the infants were easily distracted. Infants with large amounts of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; i.e., HR variability) in a baseline recording were less distractible during the deceleration-defined trials than were infants with low amounts of RSA. High-RSA infants also showed larger HR deceleration on these trials than did the low-RSA infants. These results are consistent with a model positing that sustained HR lowering during visual fixation is an index of active attention and that RSA is an index of voluntary, sustained attention in infants.     

Influence of word meaning on the acquisition of a reading vocabulary in second-grade children

The acquisition of a reading vocabulary for abstract and concrete words was examined in 62 second-grade children. Words had been learned as part of a basal reader program or as part of outside reading. Word recognition speed and reading accuracy were examined for abstract and concrete words using lexical decision and word naming tasks. The size of the concreteness effect was similar for both processing tasks. In neither task did concreteness influence reaction times, but abstract words were read with less accuracy than concrete words in both tasks. Further, these concreteness effects in reading accuracy were larger for words that were part of a basal reading program than for words acquired during free reading. We conclude that word meaning influences the entry of words at a time when children are developing a sizeable reading vocabulary.     

Securing the self: risk and aspiration in the post‐16 curriculum

This paper examines the social meaning of subject choice in the post‐16 context through a case study of Media Studies in a selective school. Students' accounts are discussed in terms of both their enjoyment of the subject and their negotiation of its ‘legitimacy’. The analysis of their comments in interviews stresses the subject's precarious position in a school where a relatively traditional hierarchy of subjects still prevails. It also considers the strength of family ‘projects’ in framing children's educational ‘choices’. Media Studies is discussed as a negotiable option primarily facilitating projections into a new middle‐class sense of self‐hood.     

Jugendliche zwischen Entwicklung und Entfaltung

Der Beitrag thematisiert jugendliche Orientierungsmuster zur Ausgestaltung der Lebensphase Jugend und deren Ver?nderung über die Zeit. Diese entstehen im komplexen Zusammenhang von wahrgenommenen Ressourcen, Einstellungen und Erwartungen Jugendlicher im Hinblick auf die Anforderung der Bew?ltigung von Entwicklungsaufgaben. Zur Abbildung dieser Muster wird auf zwei zentrale Dimensionen zurückgegriffen: auf Entfaltungsorientierung, die den Moratoriumsgedanken, und Entwicklungsorientierung, die den transitiven Charakter der Jugendphase widerspiegelt. Aus der Kombination der Orientierungen Entwicklung und Entfaltung im Anschluss an die Verknüpfung des Transitions-und Moratoriumsgedankens lassen sich vier Typen ableiten. Die Zugeh?rigkeit zu einem Typ ist nicht als statisch zu fassen, sondern ver?ndert sich entsprechend der zunehmenden Bew?ltigung von Entwicklungsaufgaben. Die Ergebnisse veranschaulichen die weitreichende Bedeutung beruflicher Orientierungen Jugendlicher im Zusammenhang mit dem bevorstehenden übergang in den Beruf, die gleichsam Auswirkungen für den gesamten Komplex jugendlicher Orientierungsmuster (Typen) zur Gestaltung der Jugendphase zeitigen.     

Setting Standards for English Foreign Language Assessment: Methodology,Validation, and a Degree of Arbitrariness

Cut‐scores were set by expert judges on assessments of reading and listening comprehension of English as a foreign language (EFL), using the bookmark standard‐setting method to differentiate proficiency levels defined by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Assessments contained stratified item samples drawn from extensive item pools, calibrated using Rasch models on the basis of examinee responses of a German nationwide assessment of secondary school language performance. The results suggest significant effects of item sampling strategies for the bookmark method on cut‐score recommendations, as well as significant cut‐score judgment revision over cut‐score placement rounds. Results are discussed within a framework of establishing validity evidence supporting cut‐score recommendations using the widely employed bookmark method.     

Playing under surveillance: gender,performance and the conduct of the self in a primary school playground

This article offers interpretations of play, in a school playground, where adult regulation and surveillance framed its enactment. Children, well aware of being watched, negotiated this through various forms of play, circumscribed by, but also playing with, adult supervision. The children were also subject to the rules governing particular age cohorts and both age and gender figured significantly in the patterns of play observed. The article argues further that, with a strong institutional emphasis on the divisions of the school day and of playtime itself, children also learnt the habits of shifting – from participation to non-participation and between modes of self-conduct. They thus became accustomed to the demands of frequent emotional and behavioural transitions and to the rhythms of the school’s organisation of time.     

Curriculum and pedagogy in Key Stage 2: a survey of policy and practice in small rural primary schools

ABSTRACT

Small primary schools have often been criticized for their staff's inevitably limited cur‐ ricular expertise and consequent difficulty in providing a full National Curriculum for their pupils. Yet in terms of standards of attainment and quality of teaching such schools are rated rather more favourably than larger ones in OFSTED inspections. Based on an investigation of policy and practice in thirteen small primary schools this article attempts to examine the reality of small schools’ planning and implementation of National Curriculum requirements at Key Stage 2 and suggests possible reasons for their ‘better’ performance, at least as judged by OFSTED inspectors.