EFL teachers’ perceptions of English language policy at the elementary level in Taiwan

Due in large part to the trends towards economic globalization, English has become the most widely disseminated and ubiquitous international language. The purpose of the study was to investigate what Taiwan’s EFL teachers at the elementary level believe about the policy of English as a compulsory subject and how they perceive the benefits and obstacles of the policy’s implementation. Ten elementary English teachers in Tainan City and its suburban areas participated in this study. Data were collected through teachers’ interviews, classroom observation and document analysis. Results found that all ten teachers agreed with the policy for English as a compulsory subject at the elementary level. They observed both positive and negative sides of this top‐down policy. Classroom observation and interview data revealed that EFL teachers had to plan their English classes with the constraints on a large class of students with mixed levels of proficiency, limited teaching hours and resources. Parents’ expectations of and attitudes towards English learning also became an obstacle.     

"科学"观与教学模式关系的探讨

“科学”现的发展与教学模式的变革之闻存在必然的联系,新的“科学”现与现代教学模式是相符合的,是互为依据的。     

实践"微型思维课"体会点滴谈

微型思维课力在为学生创设能激发兴趣，启由思维，引起遐想的情境，旨在让学生多方向，多角度去思度，探求，以发展学和的思维能力和创造能力。     

大学英语阅读课英汉对照教学探讨

阅读理解在4级和6级考试及考研测试中占有举足轻重的地位。本文根据图式理论，对大学英语阅读教学进行了英汉对照的探讨，以大学体验英语综合教程2为主，配以英汉互译版本的参考书，象看英文字幕电影一样汉语与英语同时进行教学，通过调查问卷论证英语快速阅读的可能性。     

母语文化在英语教学中的地位及必要性

通过对大学英语教学中文化教学的现状作分析,指出在教学中加强母语文化教学是十分必要的,而后对英语教学中加强母语文化教学的途径和需注意的原则进行探讨。     

Can tablet computers enhance learning in further education?

Interest in the potential benefits of providing tablet computers to students has grown in recent years, both in UK institutions, and across the world. Limited research studies have been reported in higher education (HE), and primary and secondary school settings, tentatively suggesting a range of positive impacts on learners, but little conclusive research has been published on the introduction of tablets in further education (FE). This article presents a case study of a single, mid-size English FE college, which piloted the provision of tablets to bounded groups of students and teachers in four diverse curriculum areas. The author was invited to help design the college’s evaluation of the pilot, which would inform a potential business case to extend the pilot to all students. One element was a qualitative research project, with data captured through a series of focus group interviews with all 64 students who received tablets, and separate interviews with their ten teachers. Findings are reported here, exploring the extent to which students and teachers perceived learning benefits from the tablets: for some learners, this was reported as enhancing the organisation of learning; supporting greater independence of learning and enabling more purposive learning. Barriers to learning enhancement were also identified, including institutional issues (frustration with technical infrastructure), and individual learner disengagement (distraction and surface engagement with mere ‘novelty’). Concluding that the tablets’ clear benefits were not automatically transformative, and engagement was not uniform, findings are relevant to FE managers and leaders of other institutions considering tablets as a possible learning panacea.     

Learning,literacy and identity: ‘I don’t think I’m a failure any more’

The impact of participation in adult literacy programmes on learners’ identities is examined through an interrogation of their past and current experiences and the assessment of the effect of particular pedagogies. The findings show how learners’ positive experiences in their programmes had caused them to re-evaluate their previous understandings and enabled the construction of new identities as people that are able to learn. These changes had come about through the challenging of negative discourses, the creation of new figured worlds and imagined futures, and the use of a learning curriculum where learners’ experiences were utilized as positive resources.     

Enhancing the facilitation of online groups in higher education: a review of the literature on face-to-face and online group-facilitation

There still appears to be a gap between what online learning promises and what it can deliver in terms of student learning. Developments in online pedagogies and professional learning appear to lag behind the developments in technology and the promised benefits of technological transformation may not be realised. In this paper, we bring together perspectives that highlight vital aspects of online group-learning by reviewing the group-facilitation literature and the latest online learning literature to interrogate the pedagogical theories and practices currently used in online group-learning in higher education. We specifically focus on the interpersonal interactions between teachers and students, which are described in the online learning literature using the terms instructor immediacy, teaching presence, and social presence. We note differences in the literature regarding how teacher presence is interpreted and enacted and we expound the importance of the personal characteristics of the online teacher. Finally, we provide some signposts that might help course designers and teachers to improve online group learning: the intentional use of effective online learning pedagogies; a deeper understanding of what constitutes teacher presence; and strategies to enact that teacher presence with online groups. Recommendations for further research in online group facilitation are provided.     

英语翻译教学方法浅见

大学英语翻译教学一直是较薄弱的环节。造成学生翻译水平较低的原因主要有以下三个方面:1.学生对于语言与文化之间的了解不够。2.学生缺乏一定的翻译技巧。3.学生对一词多义,词的内涵与外延等方面的知识缺乏了解。本文对学生做翻译练习和考试中出现的问题做了浅要的分析并提出了几点建议。     

Social inclusion in two worlds: the conceptualization of the social role of lifelong learning in the education policy of Brazil and the UK since the mid 1990s

Aspects of post‐16 education, particularly with reference to vocational education and training, have acquired a degree of common presentation in the policy making of many national and international organizations in recent years. This paper compares similarities and differences in the rhetoric and reality of policy implementation in Brazil and the UK in post‐16 education, particularly Technical and Vocational Education and Training. It finds an increasing alignment between these two very different countries at the levels of both discourse and practice. It argues that this reflects the dominance of international and regional agencies on whom both countries draw in developing policy, and the subsequent dissemination of those agencies' particular assumptions about the relationship between education, skills and economic performance.