热爱英语

本刊经常会收到来信来电,咨询如何学好英语事宜,本文是印度人Jack为本刊专门撰写的,大家都知道,英语是印度的官方语言,在这里Jack谈了他自己的体会,请读者们共同分享:     

Verbal Aggression,Race, and Sex on Reality TV: Is This Really the Way It Is?

This content analysis examines verbal aggression, race, and gender presented in a composite week of popular reality TV programming on cable and broadcast television. Results show that African Americans were found to be overrepresented and depicted disproportionately as more verbally aggressive and more likely to be victims of verbal aggression than other races/ethnicities. African American women were more likely than men to be involved in verbal aggression, both as aggressor and victim. The results are discussed in terms of the potential effects of exposure to verbal aggression and the accompanying contextual factors found in reality TV programming.     

Risk factors for speech delay of unknown origin in 3-year-old children

One hundred 3-year-olds with speech delay of unknown origin and 539 same-age peers were compared with respect to 6 variables linked to speech disorders: male sex, family history of developmental communication disorder, low maternal education, low socioeconomic status (indexed by Medicaid health insurance), African American race, and prolonged otitis media. Abnormal hearing was also examined in a subset of 279 children who had at least 2 hearing evaluations between 6 and 18 months of age. Significant odds ratios were found only for low maternal education, male sex, and positive family history; a child with all 3 factors was 7.71 times as likely to have a speech delay as a child without any of these factors.     

Utility of the PASS theory and cognitive assessment system for Dutch children with and without ADHD

This study examined the utility of the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, Successive (PASS) theory of intelligence as measured by the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) for evaluation of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The CAS scores of 51 Dutch children without ADHD were compared to the scores of a group of 20 Dutch children with ADHD. The scores of the Dutch children were also compared to American standardization samples of children with and without ADHD. The findings showed that children with ADHD in both countries demonstrated relatively low scores on the Planning and Attention scales of the CAS, but average scores on the Simultaneous and Successive scales. These findings are similar to previously published research suggesting that the PASS theory, as operationalized by the CAS, has sensitivity to the cognitive processing difficulties found in some children with ADHD.     

Making learning interesting and its application to the science classroom

Generations of students are graduating from secondary school disinterested in post-secondary study of science or pursuing careers in science-related fields beyond formal education. We propose that destabilising such disinterest among future students requires science educators to begin listening to secondary school students regarding their views of how science learning is made interesting within the science classroom. Studies on students’ interest in response to instructional strategies applied in the classroom communicate the opinions (i.e. the ‘voice’) of students about the strategies they believe make their classroom learning interesting. To this end, this scoping study (1) collects empirical studies that present from various science and non-science academic domains students’ views about how to make classroom learning interesting; (2) identifies common instructional strategies across these domains that make learning interesting; and (3) forwards an instructional framework called TEDI ([T]ransdisciplinary Connections; Mediated [E]ngagement; Meaningful [D]iscovery; and Self-determined [I]nquiry), which may provide secondary school science teachers with a practical instructional approach for making learning science genuinely interesting among their students within the secondary school science classroom context.     

A Commentary on Bowers (2020) and the Role of Phonics Instruction in Reading

Bowers (Educational Psychology Review, 32, 681-705, 2020) reviewed 12 meta-analytic syntheses addressing the effects of phonics instruction, concluding that the evidence is weak to nonexistent in supporting the superiority of systematic phonics to alternative reading methods. We identify five issues that limit Bowers’ conclusions: (1) definition issues; (2) what is the right question?; (3) the assumption of “phonics first”; and (4) simplification of issues around systematic versus explicit phonics. We then go on to consider (5) empirical issues in the data from meta-analyses, where Bowers misconstrues the positive effects of explicit phonics instruction. We conclude that there is consistent evidence in support of explicitly teaching phonics as part of a comprehensive approach to reading instruction that should be differentiated to individual learner needs. The appropriate question to ask of a twenty-first century science of teaching is not the superiority of phonics versus alternative reading methods, including whole language and balanced literacy, but how best to combine different components of evidence-based reading instruction into an integrated and customized approach that addresses the learning needs of each child.

     

Taiwan Elementary Teachers’ Views of Science Teaching Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectations

This paper presents the results of a case study involving 282 Taiwanese elementary science teachers at the elementary level. These teachers provided responses to the science efficacy instrument (STEBI-A) and also provided personal data regarding how their years of general (YTE) and science (YTS) teaching experience may have influenced student achievement in science. Researchers used two multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to investigate the interaction and influence of YTE and YTS upon the personal science teaching efficacy (PSTE) and science teaching outcome expectations (STOE) of these teachers. The results advocate the position that the years of general teaching experience of elementary science teachers in Taiwan have a significantly greater impact upon their personal science teaching efficacy and science teaching outcome expectations than years of teaching science. This evidence calls into question whether Bandura and Tschannen-Moran’s view of teacher efficacy as both context and subject matter specific at the elementary level can be applied to Taiwan elementary teachers who teach science. The results of this study should benefit educators and policy-makers with respect to future elementary teacher education throughout Taiwan and other developing nations. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Use of Writing with Symbols 2000 Software to Facilitate Emergent Literacy Development

This paper outlines the use of the Writing with Symbols 2000 software to facilitate emergent literacy development. The program’s use of pictures incorporated with text has great potential to help young children with and without disabilities acquire fundamental literacy concepts about print, phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, vocabulary development, and comprehension. The flexibility and features of the software allow early childhood professionals to create a variety of early literacy tools for the classroom, including worksheets, storybooks, and interactive activities.     

Accumulating Knowledge: When Are Reading Intervention Results Meaningful?

Abstract

The three target articles provide examples of intervention studies that are excellent models for the field. They rely on rigorous and elegant designs, the interventions are motivated by attention to underlying theoretical mechanisms, and longitudinal designs are used to examine the duration of effects of interventions that occur. When studies are carefully designed, effect sizes tend to be modest. We argue that the meaningfulness of effect sizes should not necessarily be determined with reference to Cohen's rule of thumb, and that modest effect sizes can result in major change in performance if they cumulate.