English in Education: the first fifty years

On the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of English in Education, this article reviews the journal's contribution to research and practice in the teaching of English. A thematic analysis based on close study of a sample of volumes is arranged chronologically (to show the development of ideas and practices) and thematically in terms of language mode (speaking; writing; reading, including new technologies). The article argues that the journal archive can shed light on the educational past in ways that can effectively inform the educational present and help to set agenda for the future.     

Exploring an intervention’s impact on everyday school activities

The focus of this paper is on a group of pupils with reading and writing difficulties who have been participating in an intervention study using assistive technology. That intervention study contained supervised training sessions with reading and writing tasks using an iPad with special supportive applications. The current study is a qualitative investigation of whether there has been any transfer from the intervention, to the pupils’ everyday school activities. Interviews with pupils and their teachers and observations during classroom lectures have been used to collect data. The results show that the pupils were positive to the assistive technology (the applications on the iPads), they found the apps easy to learn how to use and they appreciated the benefits they could give. Even so, only a few of the pupils had found use for and continued to use the tools after the intervention period finished. Possible reasons are that when the novelty wore off, students reverted to their usual study habits and that older students with many teachers and different classrooms were less able to adapt to using the apps. To improve transfer, it is suggested to introduce assistive technology earlier to students, in the younger grades, before study habits have been formed and to inform teachers about the use of AT in the classroom, including what is available and how it can benefit students.     

表现主义论争：起因、内容及其思考

表现主义作为德国现代主义文艺思潮，在美术、文学、电影、音乐和建筑等领域都取得了明显的成就，但在表现主义文艺思潮沉寂之后的1937—1938年间的关于这场文艺运动的论争再次将人们的视线引向表现主义，这场论争有一定的偏向性，但论争本身也使人们加深了对表现主义的理解，该文拟对这场论证的缘起和内容进行说明，并指出这场论争的意义。     

基于建构主义的英美文学研究性教学探究

针对英美文学的教学现状及问题,探讨了建构主义理论指导下英美文学研究性教学的改革与实践,并对改革实践效果做出了初步的总结与分析。     

比较文学教学的四个关键词

比较文学作为一门学科,内容丰富、学理性强。如何使学生真正了解比较文学学科的价值、意义,使他们正确运用比较文学原理、方法,深入开展文学研究,四个关键词至关重要,即：比较;影响;可比性;变异性。学生只有充分了解关键词的含义,切实掌握了关键词的运用,比较文学的教学才能收到事半功倍的成效。     

Exploring elementary students’ perceptions of disabilities using children's literature

The portrayal of characters in children's literature can be a very powerful influence on young children. Teachers have a responsibility to expose children to characters of all types, including those with disabilities. The goal of this study was to explore how third and fourth grade students responded to characters with disabilities in children's books. We read a total of 12 books that included characters with disabilities to students in two third‐grade and one fourth‐grade class at three elementary schools. We video‐recorded discussions about the books and identified the following four themes, all of which related to influences on students’ responses to the character with a disability: (a) societal messages, (b) academic responses, (c) teacher influence and (d) portrayal of disability. We recommend that teachers carefully select books featuring characters with disabilities based on the way the disability is portrayed in the book, and, after the read‐aloud, use questioning strategies that encourage students to make thoughtful, deep comments rather than giving ‘expected’ responses.     

Children's responses to the interactivity of storybook apps in family shared reading events involving the iPad

This paper reports on some data on the effects of screen‐based interactivity on children's engagement with storybook apps during family shared book reading that were gathered in a 2‐year, small‐scale ethnographic case study in Spain. Data analysis focuses on the complex interplay between the storybook app's interactive features and the children's responses to them. Our findings show that interactive elements increase the child's autonomy, as they tend to promote the importance of the reader, positioning him or her as a collaborator, storyteller, an author or an internal character in the fiction; something that can materialise in exciting narrative strategies that can trigger powerful responses to digital literary texts in emergent readers, including playing, creating new fictions or engaging emotionally with the story. Finally, we argue that the Reader Response models that have been used over recent decades to understand children's reading experiences with storybooks need to be revised to better understand their current experiences with interactive texts.