中国高校外语教学刍议

长期以来，中国的外语教学都是把听、说、读、写等基本技能分隔成相对独立的板块来实施的。因此，就有了口语、听力、写作、泛读和精读等诸多课程。在外语教学中最将将采用集各种技能为一体的整体教学思路和方法。其使用和完善将极大地促进中国的外语教学。     

The Environment/Society Disconnect: An Overview of a Concept Tetrad of Environment

In the Western world, a paradigm exists that sees environment treated as one extreme of an adversarial binary, balanced in opposition to society. This paradigm, which I call the environment/society disconnect, infiltrates the secondary school system, leading to serious deficiencies in how students understand the social dimensions of environmental problems. The environment/society disconnect has been imagined and re-imagined by various philosophers, ethicists, historians, ecofeminists, and environmental educators. This essay contends that there are four interconnecting, overlapping, and reinforcing views of environment that maintain the environment/society disconnect. Together these views form a concept tetrad of environment. The concept tetrad of environment provides educators with a neat, if general, typology to explain the historical and cultural roots of our thinking on environment.     

HIV/AIDS education for health care workers: needs assessment for a model tertiary curriculum

This paper deals with the learning needs of Health Care Workers (HCWs) in the field of HIV/ AIDS. Essentially the paper covers their perceived initial education and training needs at tertiary level through to the continuing vocational professional development of HCWs who are involved in the practice of health care of people living with HIV/AIDS. The focus of the paper provides an illustration of the theme of adult education that searches for roles of social relevance in both a community and continuing professional setting, notably in the context of challenging human needs. In this illustration, the identification of the tertiary level education and training needs of HCWs by the practitioners themselves, as well as other interested stakeholders, is designed to help others who follow them practice with competence and confidence in this complex area of human need. Ultimately the continuing education of HCWs in such a challenging context is concerned with empowering people living with HIV/AIDS to come to realistic and positive terms with their condition.     

Critically re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience

In this paper, we describe how and why we adopted a socially critical orientation to early career teacher resilience. In re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience, we expose the normative components of resilience by revealing the implicit values, beliefs and assumptions that underpin most traditional conceptions of resilience. We argue against the hyper-individualisation of the concept because it leads to a diminution of the influence of situational and structural forces on early career teachers’ experiences, and shifts primary responsibility for early career teacher well-being onto the individual. We lay the groundwork for a critical perspective on teacher resilience capable of illuminating the ‘problems’ of early career teachers within a broader social, cultural and political context. Our analysis is designed to promote further debate about new ways of seeing early career teacher resilience with the aim of creating and sustaining a spirit of optimism and human agency, as well as a sense of health and well-being among early career teachers.     

Competition and the adjustment of gifted children: A matter of motivation

Although there are several reasons to predict that intellectually gifted children have different attitudes toward, experiences with, and opportunities for competition, the research literature on this topic is extremely limited. In this article, we review the literature and discuss an important distinction between task‐oriented competitive behavior, which is motivated by a desire to improve performance, and other‐referenced competitive behavior, which is motivated primarily by a desire to outdo an opponent. The implications of these competitive styles with regard to the academic achievement and social adjustment of gifted youngsters is explored and some suggestions for educators and parents are provided.