Publication date: 30 August 2017 Source: Author: Elham Ghaderi Doust Apparently, English is globally used as the most fundamental communication medium. Regarding the objectives of Foreign Language Education in Iran Curriculum, an Iranian educated must be capable of expressing his opinions and viewpoints as well as accurately utilizing the foreign sources and satisfying his demands. Also, he must understand English speeches produced by native English speakers. With perspectives on these objectives, experts involved in English Education sphere design (...) and write Educational English books and teachers have been instructing these books for ages. Indeed we must raise this question: Why Iranian students are such evasive learners and why does almost nobody acquire English in an applicable way in Iranian schools? It is evident that most students of first grade of secondary schools are confronted with certain problems following as:Many students are slightly familiar with English.They often recognize English as a difficult subject to study.Also, they believe that they will not achieve a genuine progress in English.Many students show a lack of self-confidence and inferiority complex.Comparing themselves with the students in the upper grades, they feel that they cannot master English.So, certain efforts must be channeled into resolving these problems, in particular, the ways the students deal with their English books are to be changed and so are the methodologies in teaching. These may become perfectly practicable by utilizing instructional aides, preserving the students' fondness for their English courses, and organizing the instructional content from the simple to complex, as well as discussing with experts, parents, educational managers, and students. The objectives of this study are to shift students' perspectives upon English and support them through their learning English; consequently they will progress satisfactorily at present and in the future. (shrink)

The problem of teaching and learning of Russian language and literature in schools with native language of teaching related to the implementation of the principle of dialogue between cultures. The article draws on the results of the survey of graduates of the two high schools of Kazan: School #2 with teaching in Tatar language and school #37 with teaching in Russian-language. The results of the survey are (...) associated with the problems of bilingualism, multiculturalism and bimentality. Graduates from Tatar language gymnasium are bilingual and fluent in Russian and Tatar languages. 97% of graduates of Tatar gymnasium speak, read and write free in their native language and 96% in Russian. Bilingualism acts in this case like one of the manifestations of inter-ethnic interaction, a particular manifestation of biculturalism. In the National School dialogue of cultures passes through a system of parallel study of both Russian and Tatar languages and literatures: the formation of a bicultural, bilingual, bimental personality able to perceive not only the native culture, but also other culture as the native is taking place. (shrink)

This study deals with teachers’ language use as it is manifested in community-based heritage-language classes. Specifically, it focuses on the functions of students’ dominant variety when harnessed by teachers for the purposes of teaching their ethnic language. Empirical investigation was conducted at two Chinese community schools in the United Kingdom and data demonstrate that students’ L1 was utilised naturally and systematically by teachers to facilitate students’ L2 learning. Various L1 facilitative functions were identified and these (...) generally accord well with functions recorded in other studies. In addition, this study underlines the potentially unique characteristics of community-based heritage-language education: while the target variety of students is routinely the native variety of teachers, teachers struggle to explain new linguistic information in Mandarin because of students’ low proficiency while they concurrently struggle with at least some elements of students’ native or dominant variety. Teachers explained that the fact that students’ dominant language of English is a global language makes their use of it all the more likely. Teachers demonstrated a strong tendency to feel ill-prepared for their language teaching role. There is thus a clear need for heritage-language teachers to receive training that is sociolinguistically informed. This training should emphasise the potential utility of exploiting students’ full linguistic repertoires by drawing in particular on the crosslinguistic similarities and differences between the varieties of which students are cognisant. Teacher-training programmes that promote such awareness may well hold the key to better heritage-language education which will continue to have a crucial role in maintaining and developing minority community languages. (shrink)

Everybody who has learned English as a second or foreign language knows that for reaching intermediate levels, English is an easy language regarding grammar and vocabulary; however, when reaching advanced levels, the learners are faced with complex forms of morphology, syntax, and most obviously, they are faced with the difficulties that pronunciation presents. These are mainly the problems that occur with the English students whose native language is other than English. An experienced teacher (...) of non-native speakers of English can easily recognize the causes of mispronunciation, which in most cases are lack of vocabulary, lack of practice, bad teaching experiences, lack of direct contact with the language, and lack of self-confidence. There are quite a lot of words in English, which are often mispronounced. Those who have just started to learn English as a foreign language, students at primary schools, adults using English as a means of communication and as a working tool, such as businessmen, politicians, administrators, doctors, accountants, and those studying English for teaching purposes, even the teachers of English are faced with the problems of proper pronunciation of words in English.The aim of this research is to identify the problems that the students in the Department of English Language and Literature in the Faculty of Languages, Cultures and Communication face with when they deal with pronunciation of lexical words. (shrink)

The present study examined the costs and benefits of native language similarity for non-native vocabulary learning. Because learning a second language is difficult, many learners start with easy words that look like their native language to jumpstart their vocabulary. However, this approach may not be the most effective strategy in the long-term, compared to introducing difficult L2 vocabulary early on. We examined how L1 orthographic typicality affects pattern learning of novel vocabulary by (...) class='Hi'>teaching English monolinguals either Englishlike or Non-Englishlike pseudowords that contained repeated orthographic patterns. We found that overall, the first words that individuals learned during initial acquisition influenced which words they acquired later. Specifically, learning a new word in one session made it easier to acquire an orthographically similar word in the next session. Similarity among non-native words interacted with native language similarity, so that words that looked more like English were easier to learn at first, but they were less effective at influencing later word learning. This demonstrates that although native language similarity has a beneficial effect early on, it may reduce learners' ability to benefit from non-native word patterns during continued acquisition. This surprising finding demonstrates that making learning easier may not be the most effective long-term strategy. Learning difficult vocabulary teaches the learner what makes non-native words unique, and this general wordform knowledge may be more valuable than the words themselves. We conclude that native language similarity modulates new vocabulary acquisition and that difficulties during learning are not always to be avoided, as additional effort early on can pay later dividends. (shrink)

We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult (...) bilinguals with heritage-Greek, -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike. (shrink)

Is vocabulary destiny? Why do clocks 'talk' to the Nahua people of Mexico? Will A.I. researchers ever produce true human-machine dialogue? In this mesmerizing collection of essays, Daniel Tammet answers these and many other questions about the intricacy and profound power of language. Tammet goes back in time to explore the numeric language of his autistic childhood; he looks at the music and patterns that words make, and how languages evolve and are translated. He meets one of the (...) world's most accomplished lip readers in Canada, learns how endangered languages like Manx are being revived and corresponds with native speakers of Esperanto in their mother tongue. He studies the grammar of the telephone, contemplates the significance of disappearing dialects, and also asks: will chatbots ever manage to convince us that they are human? From the art of translation to the lyricism of sign language, "Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing" is a fascinating journey through the world of words, letters, stories and meanings, and an extraordinary testament to the stunning range of Tammet's literary and polyglot talents. (shrink)

What leads humans to divide the social world into groups, preferring their own group and disfavoring others? Experiments with infants and young children suggest these tendencies are based on predispo- sitions that emerge early in life and depend, in part, on natural language. Young infants prefer to look at a person who previously spoke their native language. Older infants preferentially accept toys from native-language speakers, and preschool children preferentially select native-language speakers as (...) friends. Variations in accent are sufficient to evoke these social preferences, which are observed in infants before they produce or comprehend speech and are exhibited by children even when they comprehend the foreign-accented speech. Early-developing preferences for native-language speakers may serve as a foundation for later-developing preferences and conflicts among social groups. (shrink)

C. S. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society.

Thoreau’s Walden is a text that has been misinterpreted in various ways, one consequence of which is a failure to appreciate its significance as a perfectionist and visionary text for education. This paper explores aspects of what might be called its teaching, especially via the kind of teaching that is offered by Stanley Cavell’s commentary, The Senses of Walden. Walden is considered especially in the light of its conception of language as the “father-tongue” and of the ideas (...) of continual rebirth and departure that are associated with this. References to teaching and learning abound in the book, but it is Thoreau’s specific reference to the need for “uncommon schools” that provides a focus for the present discussion. (shrink)

In this article we present a qualitative analysis of empirical findings from an international project on intergroup attitudes and contact in five Central European countries specifically concerning language use. The project concentrated on the interplay of intergroup contact and perception between the members of national groups in the borderlands between the Czech Republic and Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia. The open statements analysed here about the contact situations and the ensuing evaluation of the Others were collected as part of (...) an online questionnaire (N=1959). After a short theoretical introduction we reveal the intertwined nature of construing language use: first in each specific borderland, then in the triads speaking together either in the native language of one of the groups (Czechs with Austrians and Germans) or with each speaking their own native languages (Czechs with Poles and Slovaks). Finally we highlight several effects we have observed as a result of being able to compare the situation in more than one neighbourhood, for instance, the effect of the different statuses of the languages involved, or the connection between the language used in contact and a feeling of proximity. (shrink)

The necessity of the study of mistakes of bilingual students in the use of nominal parts of speech is grounded in the article, it provides valuable material for scientific and methodological conclusions, as these mistakes reflect linguistic, psychological and pedagogical aspects that affect the ability of schoolchildren to learn peculiarities of using nominal parts of speech of Russian language. In this regard, ascertaining experiment with pupils of schools with native teaching language was held. Students (...) were offered the tasks based on formation of the four types of competence: language, linguistic, communicative and cultural. The results of the experiment made possible to reveal numerous mistakes in using nominal parts of speech in oral speech and in writing of students. These mistakes are a consequence of the complexity of semantic and grammatical nature of the names in the Russian language, of interfering influence of the native language and as well are explained by the imperfection of the content and methods of teaching nominal parts of speech at school. (shrink)

This article explores the role of the Deaf child as peer educator. In schools where sign languages were banned, Deaf children became the educators of their Deaf peers in a number of contexts worldwide. This paper analyses how this peer education of sign language worked in context by drawing on two examples from boarding schools for the deaf in Nicaragua and Thailand. The argument is advanced that these practices constituted a child-led oppositional pedagogy. A connection is drawn to Freire’s (...) (1972) theory of critical pedagogy. Deaf children’s actions as peer educators are framed as an act of resistance towards the oppression of their language and culture. A contrast is drawn between oralist pedagogy that is historically associated with punitive practices and didactic methods and the experiential and dialogic interaction that characterised peer learning of sign languages. The argument is made that the peer teaching and learning processes enabled the self-actualisation of the Deaf children whereas the oralist methods were based on a deficit model that focused on modifying deaf children according to the norms of hearing society. The implications of this for current policy and practice are inferred to be about access to sign languages and the importance of Deaf communities in deaf children’s education. The argument is made that space needs to be created for deaf children to engage in peer learning. (shrink)

The present research study focuses on how the language of instruction has an impact on the mathematical thinking development as a consequence of using a language of instruction different from the students’ mother tongue. In CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) academic content and a foreign language are leant at the same time, a methodology that is widely used in the schools in the present times. It is, therefore, our main aim to study if the (...) class='Hi'>language of instruction in second language immersion programs influences the development of the first formal mathematical concepts. More specifically, if the learning of mathematical concepts in the early ages develops in a similar way if it is taught in the students’ mother tongue and is not influenced by the language used for teaching. Or else, if it can influence the development of the first skills only in the students’ general performance or in certain areas. The results of both the analysis of variance and multiple regression confirm how influencing the language of instruction is when mathematical thinking is developed teaching formal contents in a non-coincidence language. The second language is affecting the resolution of daily life problems, being more competent those students in 1st grades whose language of instruction matched with their mother tongue. (shrink)

Culturally responsive teaching has been found to promote student engagement and enhance learning in the classroom. As an effective pedagogy, the past decade has witnessed a soaring interest in exploring teachers’ competence, self-efficacy, and influencing factors in implementing CRT across school subjects. However, scant attention has been directed to language teachers’ engagement with CRT. Given the increasing diversity in students’ socio-economic status, cultural backgrounds, learning needs and preferences in English language classrooms, CRT has also become (...) a prominent concern in China. This study sets out to explore English as a Foreign Language teacher engagement with CRT in rural schools in China. With a multi-case study of eight EFL teachers, the researchers collected data through individual interviews and classroom observations. Four types of teacher engagement based on the foci were identified and were further characterized by cognitive, emotional, and social aspects. This study also taps into the internal and external factors influencing the teachers’ engagement with CRT. Implications and suggestions were provided to tackle the problems of English Language Education in rural China and contexts alike worldwide. (shrink)

The present study investigates linguistics and cognitive effects of bilingualism with a minority language acquired through school medium education. If bilingualism has an effect on cognition and language abilities, regardless of language prestige or opportunities of use, young adult Gaelic-English speakers attending Gaelic medium education (GME) could have an advantage on linguistic and cognitive tasks targeting executive functions. These will be reported, compared to monolingual speakers living in the same area. Furthermore, this study investigates whether (...) there is a difference in Home Speakers of Gaelic (speakers who had acquired the language at home) compared to New Speakers of this language, i.e. whether an immersive context -as the one offered in medium education- compensates for not being native. A group of 23 monolingual English young adult speakers was compared with a group of 25 bilingual speakers attending a GME school since five years old. Participants were tested on comprehension of a set of sentences with incremental complexity in English, on their capacity to inhibit a distractor using the Test of Everyday attention (TEA) and on their performance in a Digit Span task. A tendency for a better performance on more complex linguistics and cognitive tasks was reported in bilinguals compared to monolinguals with a further advantage for New Speakers compared to Home Speakers. The study supports the idea that being bilingual in a minority language is as beneficial as speaking any other combination of languages. An immersive context of acquisition can be a good ground for developing advantages on both linguistics and cognitive tasks, with a further advantage for New speakers of the language. (shrink)

Language for Learning in the Primary School is the long awaited second edition of _Language for Learning_, first published in 2004 and winner of the NASEN/TES Book Award for Teaching and Learning in 2005. This handbook has become an indispensable resource, packed full of practical suggestions on how to support 5-11 year old children with speech, language and communication difficulties. Colour coded throughout for easy referencing, this unique book supports inclusive practice by helping teachers to: (...) Identify children with speech, language and communication needs Understand speech, language and communication skills Consider roles and responsibilities at primary school Plan a differentiated and adapted curriculum Consider the language demands across subjects Adopt a whole school approach Make use of a wide range of positive strategies Empower children to access the curriculum Language for Learning in the Primary School comes complete with a wealth of photocopiable resources, giving teachers and teaching assistants the confidence to help children with SLCN more effectively in mainstream settings. It will also be an extremely useful resource for speech and language therapists, specialist teachers and educational psychologists. (shrink)

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) served as a test case for determining the role of extant vocabulary knowledge, endogenous attention, and phonological working memory abilities in cross-situational word learning. First-graders (Mage = 7 years; 3 months), 44 with typical development (TD) and 28 with DLD, completed a cross-situational word-learning task comprised six cycles, followed by retention tests and independent assessments of attention, memory, and vocabulary. Children with DLD scored lower than those with TD (...) on all measures of learning and retention, a performance gap that emerged in the first cycle of the cross-situational protocol and that we attribute to weaknesses in initial encoding. Over cycles, children with DLD learned words at a similar rate as their TD peers but they were less flexible in their strategy use, demonstrating a propose-but-verify approach but never a statistical aggregation approach. Also, they drew upon different mechanisms to support their learning. Attention played a greater role for the children with DLD, whereas extant vocabulary size played a greater role for the children with TD. Children navigate the problem space of cross-situational learning via varied routes. This conclusion is offered as motivation for theorists to capture all learners, not just the most typical ones. (shrink)

This study aims to examine and compare female and male Kurdish EFL students’ level and type of motivation based on L2 motivational self-system components and to identify their dominant type of motivation. The participants of this study were 118 students were randomly selected as the participants of this study from different cities of Erbil governorate in Kurdistan region of Iraq. A Learners questionnaire used following the application of semi-structured interview sessions with learners who participated in the study. The data (...) obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed through SPSS software, and the interview results were interpreted and analyzed through content analysis. The findings of this study revealed that both male and female Kurdish EFL students generally have high levels of motivation and the attitudes of both groups of learners were found to be generally positive towards English language and its learning. The most frequent motivational strategies, ways of motivating and arranging for them a suitable culture and recommended by the teachers in this study are helpful, especially for teacher educators in teacher training programs, so that they can get aware of the most used strategies by Kurdish EFL teachers in high school to be the leadership for this purpose, and try to improve and correct them, and try to teach them the most effective strategies and ways of raising motivation in the students. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic affected education institutions just like several other sectors. These institutions, which are among the places where people are found collectively, were the first places that were closed for precaution. Some problems of distance education conducted in online platforms which were assumed upon the termination of face-to-face education emerged in time. Especially in this urgent solution, where the workload of teachers has increased, some application difficulties have been identified in foreign language teaching. From this point of (...) view, considering the foreign language education policy and planning, this study deals with the distance education practices of English teachers, the difficulties they encounter in the process, and their solution proposals. The research, which was designed as a qualitative study, was conducted with a case study design. The participants of the research are 13 English teachers working at the secondary school level in different districts of Northern Cyprus determined by the homogeneous sampling method. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews developed by the researchers. The qualitative data were analyzed with descriptive analysis. As a result of the interviews with the teachers, it has been determined that there are problems related to technology, students, online classes, and planning in English teaching carried out with distance education applications. Accordingly, the teachers offered their recommendations that could be a solution to the existing problems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Walking the Bodhisattva Path/Walking the Christ PathU.S. Conference of Catholic BishopsCatholics and Buddhists brought together by Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, the San Francisco Zen Center, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) met 20-23 March 2003 in the first of an anticipated series of four annual dialogues. Abbot Heng Lyu, the monks and nuns, and members of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association hosted the dialogue at the (...) City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, California. The community had transformed their Confucius Hall into a chapel, with a large, newly constructed wooden cross on a wall above an altar facing out from a raised platform, so the Catholic delegation would have a space for worship. A special poster announcing the theme of the conference, "Walking the Bodhisattva Path/Walking the Christ Path," showing a Buddhist dharma wheel at one foot of a bridge and a Celtic cross at the other foot, had been created by the hosting community.The daily schedule for the dialogue did not interfere with the monastic routine at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which included early morning chanting (4:00-5:00 am), daily rituals in the Buddha Hall, and the single large meal for monastics before noon to which all participants were invited. Catholics and Buddhists meeting in the dialogue began each day with an optional forty-five minutes of quiet sitting together in the monastery meditation hall, each following their own form of meditation and prayer. There was a Eucharist on Friday and Saturday evenings for the Catholics and to which the Buddhists were invited, and additional meals of breakfast and supper throughout the meeting at the City's Jyun Kang Restaurant.Fourteen Buddhists and fourteen Catholics participated in the formal discussions. Each participant spoke on what it means to them to follow Christ or the way of the Bodhisattvas or enlightened beings. In addition to speaking, each participant distributed a short passage, usually from a traditional text, on this topic. Several passages from Master Dogen's Shobogenzo and the Gospel of John were among those shared by the group. Other passages shared were taken from the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra and from the other gospels and the writings of Zen master HakuinZenji, the Dalai Lama, Korean Zen Master I-sahn Hye-yeon, the teachings of Master [End Page 247] Hsuan Hua, Shantideva, Origen, St. Ignatius, St. Benedict, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross, and Chiara Lubich. A minute of silence separated the fifteen-minute segments for each presentation. With so large a group, most of the time in the formal sessions involved listening to series of presentations; however, during discussion periods the participants asked several challenging questions of one another.Some participants noted the tension they felt between belonging to a particular religious group and the need to let go of any consequential narrowness. The goal of the discussion was to promote understanding of the differences and similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. At one point, the participants noted several concerns about mutual enrichment: whether Buddhist methods can be separated from Buddhism and Christian methods from Christianity, and what specific aspects of Christian practice truly enrich Buddhists and which Buddhist practices likewise enrich Christians. Several times participants discussed their understanding of terms such as transformation, grace, the incarnation and the passion of Jesus, discernment of spirits, prayer, Buddha-nature, and related terms. There was consensus that Buddhists and Catholics can practically help one another regarding mental cultivation and religious precepts. They expressed this consensus in their choice of the topic forthe next dialogue, "Transformation of Hearts and Minds: Chan/Zen-Catholic Approaches to Precepts."The group agreed to reconvene in 2004 to respond to six presentations, three from each side, on different aspects of this topic.Chairing the sessions were Rev. Heng Sure for the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton for the San Francisco Zen Center, and Bishop John Webster for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Their three organizations are the sponsors of the Northern California Chan/Zen-Catholic Dialogue. Chan and Zen are respectively the Chinese and Japanese terms for the meditation school... (shrink)

Offering a cautionary tale about the abuses of paradigm‐shift rhetoric in secondary school reforms, the paper shows potential misuses and ethical effects of the relativistic language‐game in post‐compulsory education. Those initiating the shift often shelter their reform from the criticism of non‐adepts, marginalizing expert teachers that adhere to ‘antiquated’ or ‘folk’ pedagogies. The rhetoric herds educators uncritically into the citadel of new discourses and policies that often lack practical foundations; consequently, teachers often dissimulate compliance to the reform in (...) order to evade surveillance within such disciplinary apparatuses as teacher training and regimes of inspection. Turning to Foucault, the author views education reforms in terms of power relations within a form of governance: ‘games of truth’, or political and veridical discourses in which dividing practices for sorting out ‘sound’ and ‘unsound’ teaching practices become institutionalised. Wittgenstein's attention to initiate training in practices points to an alternative to naïve forms of relativism; educators must incorporate the new techniques they gradually master and adapt within a viable, shared form of life. Instead of teachers’ normalization and subjugation in what Foucault refers to as education ‘blocks’, new pedagogic practices are better adopted ‘freely’ as arts of self‐transformation. With Hacking, Foucault and Wittgenstein's accounts of the true‐and‐false are blended into an ‘historical ontology’ of present and emergent paradigms: a critique of the limits set down within education reforms that sanction or legitimize certain conduct. Sympathetic to the journal call, this kind of philosophical investigation and genealogical critique of teaching practices gives us a perspicuous view of the local, contingent and at times arbitrary nature of change initiatives. Critical awareness of how our pictures of education can captivate us heightens respect for professional eclecticism. Without ignoring the mandates and official scripts of public education reforms, experienced educators need to be able to conserve their tried and warranted ‘best practices’, while negotiating ranges of tolerance for alternative means. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Blue Pearl: The Efficacy of Teaching Mindfulness Practices to College StudentsDeborah J. Haynes, Katie Irvine, and Mindy BridgesBetween fall 2003 and spring 2011 I integrated contemplative practices into ten courses with a total of 877 students. Nine of these courses carried credit for the core undergraduate curriculum, either in literature and arts or ideals and values, and students elected my courses from a menu of options. (...) Individual courses ranged from 12 to 409 students. During two of these years, I conducted detailed human subject research using a number of surveys, gathering both quantitative and qualitative data with first-year undergraduates on their experiences with contemplative pedagogy. These courses dealt specifically with art and religion, focusing on traditions where the visual arts are intricately connected to religious practice. I gathered more subjective data in all of the other courses, including large lecture courses on world art from 1500 to the present. In general, my students were not majors in art or religious studies, but came from many disciplines within the arts, social sciences, and sciences, including business and engineering. This essay describes the process and results of the research I conducted with two undergraduate assistants, Katie Irvine and Mindy Bridges. Besides summarizing the findings, I also describe student responses to teaching a specific mindfulness practice—the bow—within a large lecture course with undergraduates. It is notable how little actual data exists about student experiences, and this prompted me to undertake the research that forms the basis for this essay.1I begin with a few comments on my understanding of contemplative or mindfulness practice and my role as researcher. There is no single way to describe or engage in contemplative practice. The Latin contemplari means to observe, consider, or gaze attentively. This definition gives clues about the varied forms of contemplative practice, which include sitting, standing, walking, and lying down; using attitudes of not doing; deep listening, pondering, and radical questioning; guided imagery and active imagination; exercises with the body; focusing techniques such as those developed by Eugene Gendlin; concentrated language experiments with freewriting, poetry, and journals; beholding; and creation of visual images to represent such experiences.2 The [End Page 63] word mindfulness is often used to describe contemplative practice. In its most basic form, it means moment-by-moment present awareness, which is available to everyone, regardless of religious or spiritual orientation.Broadly understood as methods to develop concentration, to deepen understanding and insight, and to cultivate awareness and compassion, these practices can have a profound impact on a student’s experience both in college and beyond. Specifically, teaching students techniques of awareness, concentration, and means of disciplining their attention is absolutely essential in our era of fragmentation, ever-increasing speed, multitasking, and continuously interrupted attention. While contemplative practices are rooted in the world’s religious traditions, I often tell parents and students that the application of these practices in a secular educational context can enhance the educational experience in unique ways. Students develop new techniques of awareness, they learn to refine their perceptual and observational skills, and they are encouraged to take chances and to foster attitudes such as curiosity and wonder rather than cynicism about the world in which we live.Contemplative PedagogyIntroducing contemplative practices into the classroom results in new educational practices and pedagogies. For example, in a course titled The Dialogue of Art and Religion my students learn about Russian Orthodox icons, Himalayan Buddhist thangkas, and Navajo sand paintings through studying cultural and social history, religion, formal visual analysis, and creative processes. I define this interdisciplinary teaching as a form of comparative visual studies. I normally teach this class to eighteen or twenty first-year college students. Students also learn about the practices of prayer and meditation that are central to Christian, Buddhist, and Native American traditions through sustained reading and discussion. They read accessible books about contemplative practice such as Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness.3 In each class, we practice simple techniques such as bowing, sitting in silence, breath awareness, and daily writing exercises.Over the past decade my students have talked about how these mindfulness exercises help to foster an atmosphere of respect, noting... (shrink)

Offering a cautionary tale about the abuses of paradigm‐shift rhetoric in secondary school reforms, the paper shows potential misuses and ethical effects of the relativistic language‐game in post‐compulsory education. Those initiating the shift often shelter their reform from the criticism of non‐adepts, marginalizing expert teachers that adhere to ‘antiquated’ or ‘folk’ pedagogies. The rhetoric herds educators uncritically into the citadel of new discourses and policies that often lack practical foundations; consequently, teachers often dissimulate compliance to the reform in (...) order to evade surveillance within such disciplinary apparatuses as teacher training and regimes of inspection. Turning to Foucault, the author views education reforms in terms of power relations within a form of governance: ‘games of truth’, or political and veridical discourses in which dividing practices for sorting out ‘sound’ and ‘unsound’ teaching practices become institutionalised. Wittgenstein's attention to initiate training in practices points to an alternative to naïve forms of relativism; educators must incorporate the new techniques they gradually master and adapt within a viable, shared form of life. Instead of teachers’ normalization and subjugation in what Foucault refers to as education ‘blocks’, new pedagogic practices are better adopted ‘freely’ as arts of self‐transformation. With Hacking, Foucault and Wittgenstein's accounts of the true‐and‐false are blended into an ‘historical ontology’ of present and emergent paradigms: a critique of the limits set down within education reforms that sanction or legitimize certain conduct. Sympathetic to the journal call, this kind of philosophical investigation and genealogical critique of teaching practices gives us a perspicuous view of the local, contingent and at times arbitrary nature of change initiatives. Critical awareness of how our pictures (models) of education can captivate us heightens respect for professional eclecticism. Without ignoring the mandates and official scripts of public education reforms, experienced educators need to be able to conserve their tried and warranted ‘best practices’, while negotiating ranges of tolerance for alternative means. (shrink)

This study examined the perceived effects of examination special centres on teaching and learning of English language and the quality of education in Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State, Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive survey design. All the 123 English language teachers from 31 secondary schools, five secondary school principals, three religious priests and three traditional leaders in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, Nigeria were sampled for the study. The researchers developed a 15-item-structured (...) questionnaire for data collection from the 31 teachers; while 3 structured interview questions were used to elicit responses from the principals, religious priests and traditional leaders. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyse the data collected with questionnaire; while the oral interview was analysed qualitatively through thematic analysis. The study revealed that examination special centres have detrimental effect on the teaching and learning of English language in secondary schools and the quality of education in Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State, Nigeria. It was recommended among others that private and public secondary schools, and tutorial centres that have been turned into examination special centres should be closed down by Enugu State Ministry of Education. (shrink)

(2000). Language Matters: the politics of teaching immigrant adolescents school English in the secondary school. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 61-71.

Kneller's main concern is that, "If we are to understand the problems, policies, and concepts of education, we must first examine carefully the language of educational discourse." This book is a sober and readable review of several problems in modern philosophy, in which are revealed some of the strategies used by the giants of language philosophy to analyze difficult philosophical propositions and paradoxes. Each chapter of historical exposition is paralleled with a chapter of applications to problems in (...) educational philosophy. The early part of the book is a review of John Dewey's central theses, plus a few words on research methodology in general, both of which are related to the conduct of classroom lessons; the second part of the book, which Kneller calls "Formal Analysis," is an exceedingly competent precis of work in the philosophy of science, especially Wittgenstein's and Carnap's, followed by a series of important caveats to educational researchers, reminding them of some of the serious problems of inference and generalization in the behavioral sciences; the third section, featuring Ryle, Austin, and Strawson, is called "Informal Analysis," and is principally a discussion of "ordinary language" philosophy, with applications to the familiar clichés and slogans of school administrators and politicians. Kneller favors this last group, since he feels that informal analysis is more "practical and humane," and his feelings are supported by some current conflicts between hard and soft educational research. The basic exhortation of this book, though, is that people who talk and think about education should be more philosophically competent about it, even if their philosophical blunders have not yet affected their ability to teach and make policy. He maintains that educational philosophy will not add anything new to the educational universe, but rather, clarify what is already there.—E. H. W. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Why music? The Foundations of Music Education from Plato until Today by Øivind VarkøyDaniela BartelsØivind Varkøy, Warum Musik? Zur Begründung des Musikunterrichts von Platon bis heute [Why music? The Foundations of Music Education from Plato until Today], Stefan Gies, trans. with the assistance of Hanne Fossum (Innsbruck, Esslingen, Bern-Belp: Helbling, 2016)Øivind Varkøy's book Why music? was first published in Norway in 1993 and translated into Swedish three (...) years later. In 2016, a newly revised edition was published in German. This review refers to the German edition and a special focus will be on the third chapter, because Varkøy's convincing interpretation of Kant's theory of aesthetic judgement presents a counter narrative to other interpretations of this theory that have been in circulation in North America for quite some time.In the introduction, Varkøy explains that it is his intention to present a diverse array of reasons for teaching music. He also explains why (future) music teachers should reflect on these reasons and the possible values of their professional actions: "A clear stance on the value of one's own work will have a positive effect on one's professional identity and the psychological and physical well-being."1 In the first chapter, he takes the readers back to the world of "the old Greeks"—an [End Page 224] expression that is often used in Europe—and he specifically addresses the values Plato and Aristotle have ascribed to music. The chapter starts with the mythos about mousiké as a gift from the gods and Varkøy explains that this term used to stand for much more than music. It included diverse forms of art such as language, poetry, and dance which were seen as means that can express order and beauty as well as a realization of harmonia which "holds the world together."2 As far as philosophies of music education are concerned, both Plato and Aristotle stress that music education serves the character formation of young people and both are quite strict concerning the way music should be taught to the young. To give an example, Plato rejects that the aulos is used in schools, because it is a woodwind instrument that served as a means of intoxication in rituals. Plato's point was that it would make the youth soft and therefore unable to contribute to the establishment of a 'good' state system. Varkøy stresses that Plato did not differentiate between the aesthetic and the ethical dimension of music, since the term kalokagathia stands for both 'the beautiful' and 'the good.' It almost seems as if Varkøy had the North American debate between the so-called 'aesthetic' and 'praxial educators' in mind when he wrote this chapter, and it is a pity that he does not go into more detail concerning the terms 'the beautiful' and 'the good.' On the other hand, he gives a clear summary of the different functions Aristotle has ascribed to music. He emphasizes that Aristotle mentions the three functions of music as a source of well-being and enjoyment, as a means of character formation, and as an intellectual activity that can lead to a "higher level" of experience.3 In Aristotle's thinking, all of these functions are of value. Concerning the functions and values of music that are discussed, Varkøy abstains from passing his own judgment which leaves a welcome space for one's own thinking.In the second chapter, Varkøy focuses on the functions of music between the time of early Christianity and the time of Comenius. He puts forward an intriguing argument when he states that the Church Father Augustine, who saw the fact that people can enjoy music just for pleasure as a danger, has already pointed to the notion of music as a phenomenon with its own, intrinsic value. At the end of this chapter, Varkøy asks the readers to reflect on Comenius' distinction between "useful" knowledge and knowledge that serves "the way of making one's living."4 He returns to this distinction later on in his book.In the chapter "Progress and Reason," the focus is on... (shrink)

This article is based on an analysis of two types of argument, called utilitarian and educational respectively, which are commonly used to justify the teaching of modern/foreign languages in schools. Serious flaws are identified in the utilitarian arguments often employed to defend the teaching of modern languages and different educational arguments which might be offered as justification for their inclusion in the school curriculum are distinguished and appraised. The paper concludes with a consideration of the implications (...) of the foregoing analysis for the place of modern languages in the school curriculum. (shrink)

In accordance with the Bologna Declaration, modern languages and communication skills have a growing importance in all professions. With the prospect of Croatian membership of the EU and taking into consideration the conditions of the growing internationalization of law in general, knowledge of foreign languages represents an indispensable prerequisite for international com- munication within the legal profession. Thus, teaching foreign languages in the field of law, especially English and German, is necessary not only for the pro- fessional (...) education of Croatian law students, but also for their mobility within the network of European universities. This paper presents a case-study of the current situation in teaching Legal English and Legal German in Croatian Law Schools. First, the status of foreign languages for specific purposes in the Higher Education System of the Republic of Croatia in general is analyzed. The main part of the paper is dedicated to teaching Legal English and / or Legal German as compulsory courses within the curricula of Croatian law faculties. Then some projects on teaching foreign languages to practicing lawyers will be presented. With the prospect of Croatian membership of the EU, specific education programmes for lawyer- linguists have been introduced by the Law Faculties of Zagreb and Osijek. These programmes, developed within the lifelong education project for lawyers, offer an opportunity for Croatian law students and young lawyers not only to im- prove their knowledge of Legal English and Legal German, but also to learn other languages of the EU, like French or Italian. These new programmes are the response of Croatian foreign language teachers to the current requirements of the European labour market and the challenges of the internationalization of the modern world. (shrink)

This paper presents the findings of an ultrasound study of ten New Zealand English and ten Tongan -speaking trombone players, to determine whether there is an influence of native language speech production on trombone performance. Trombone players’ midsagittal tongue positions were recorded while reading wordlists and during sustained note productions. After normalizing to account for differences in vocal tract shape and ultrasound transducer orientation, we used generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to estimate average tongue shapes used by the (...) players from the two language groups when producing notes at different pitches and intensities, and during the production of the monophthongs in their native languages. The average midsagittal tongue contours predicted by our models show a statistically robust difference at the back of the tongue distinguishing the two groups, although tongue shape during playing does not directly map onto vowel tongue shapes as prescribed by the pedagogical literature. While the New Zealand English-speaking participants employed a playing tongue position approximating the neutral vowel schwa and vowel used in the word ‘lot’, the Tongan participants used a tongue shape loosely patterning with the back vowels /o/ and /u/. We argue that these findings represent evidence for native language influence on brass instrument performance; however, this influence seems to be secondary to more basic constraints of brass playing related to airflow requirements and acoustical considerations, with the vocal tract configurations observed across both groups satisfying these conditions in different ways. Our findings furthermore provide evidence for the functional independence of various sections of the tongue and indicate that speech production, itself an acquired motor skill, can influence another skilled behavior via motor memory of vocal tract gestures forming the basis of local optimization processes to arrive at a suitable tongue position for sustained note production. (shrink)

One of the significant courses in Chinese universities is English. This course is usually taught by a foreign language instructor. There will, however, necessarily be some communication hurdles between “foreign language teachers” and “native students.” This research presents an emotion recognition method for foreign language teachers in order to eliminate communication barriers between teachers and students and improve student learning efficiency. We discovered four factors of emotion recognition through literature analysis: smile, eye contact, gesture, and tone. (...) We believe that differences in foreign language teachers’ performance in these four areas will have an impact on students’ emotion recognition and, as a result, on their learning efficiency. The influence of the foreign language teacher’s eye contact and gestures is larger in the decision whether can improve the students’ classroom learning efficiency, according to 43 of the questionnaire data analysis. The second is the tone and smile. Our research contributes to the body of knowledge on emotion recognition in university foreign language teachers by presenting a practical method for recognizing emotion in foreign language teachers. We recommend that college foreign language teachers pay attention to eye and gesture communication with students in English classrooms based on the findings. By enriching the style of emotional expression in class, college language teachers, particularly foreign language teachers, can improve communication, and connection with students. (shrink)

"Teaching after all is about knowing children well" -- from A Letter to Teachers "Perrone has given us a gift, a book worth reading over many times, an important reflection on his many years of close observation of schools and school people, parents, teachers, children, and their communities." -- Deborah W. Meier, principal, Central Park East Secondary School Simple, elegant and full of common sense, these reflections on the art of teaching address the deepest concerns teachers (...) have for their work with children and young people. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article explores the complexity of classroom interaction between teachers and unaccompanied teenagers seeking asylum in Norway. These teenagers find themselves within legal and political ‘grey areas’ where educational goals specific to their extreme situations are unavailable to them, and they end up being either forgotten in the system or closely monitored for possible failure. Their teachers encounter these teenagers in their realities; new to a culture, new language, new ways of being and doing, in addition to past (...) traumatic experiences and overt monitoring by authorities. These unaccompanied teenagers have varied school experiences, lacking in many ways the cultural and educational knowledge in addition to language competencies needed to be in a high school. We explore what it might mean to teach in such circumstances where unresolvable dilemmas exist within a political school system that is ambivalent towards them and seems to be setting them on an exclusion trajectory within schools. Based on interviews with teachers and observations in two high schools on the west coast of Norway, we describe and interpret anecdotal narrative examples in the light of the continental phenomenology of practice methodology. We explore the existential educational possibilities that lie in moments when teaching appears to have failed, teachers seem not to know what to do, what kind of responsibility to take, or what kind of repercussions their actions might have on their students. The article argues that when education is controlled to the degree of possible outcomes, it thwarts meaningful encounters that would have been possible between the teachers and their young students. (shrink)

The paper describes the conception of logic in Polish didactics authored by the Commission of National Education (KEN), an important educational institution of the European Enlightenment. Since the documents of the Commission refer to a vision of science presented by such influential works then as the Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire universel raisonné [Great French Encyclopedia], the paper compares the requirements from the Commission’s programmer with the encyclopaedic entries that entail logical problems broadly understood. It turns out that the Commission, following (...) the Encyclopédie, not only recommended a list of textbooks of logic but also shared its eclectic vision of logic. Although it is characteristic of modernity to take a relative approach to the importance of traditional logic, transformed into science on method, or literally an outline of epistemology, understood according to É. Condillac as a specific form of metaphysics, nevertheless some elements of logic were eclectically made valid. This logic, from the times of I. Kant, has been defined as formal logic. Practical logical skills were preferred to the knowledge of logical theories. At the same time attention was paid to the meaning of natural logical skills, and drills in logical reasoningwhen studying languages and mathematics. Despite preferences for the analytical method they also noticed the importance of synthetic method. It seems also that although the documents of the Commission do not say anything about the teaching of syllogistic issues, in didactic practice inspired by the Encyclopédie in the schools controlled by the Commission, the room was made to teach these problems. Condillac’s book was preferred in the schools controlled by the Commission, nevertheless, it was not, as in the case of other textbooks, a must on the reading list, an obligatory reading matter, therefore it was not published in Poland. The conception of logic presented by the Commission as modelled on the Encyclopédie managed to avoid the one-sidedness of Condillac’s approach, the approach that in fact eliminated the teaching of logic. (shrink)

This paper examines whether having school students repeat a year improves their performance, focusing on learning English as a foreign language. It takes students’ English examination results from five years from a Chinese‐medium school, together with data on their learning styles and learning strategies. Drawing on local cultural and pedagogic factors, the study finds that repeating a year, far from improving scores, homogenizes the results of males and females, and, while finding a small but statistically insignificant (...) rise in the scores of females, is detrimental to the performance of males. Repeating a year either makes no difference or a negative difference to results. It is suggested that repeating a year reproduces, sharpens and potentiates gender differences in learning and performing in English as a foreign language, and that repeating a year is the medium and outcome of gender inequality. Implications are drawn for practice. (shrink)

This small-scale research paper analyses both teachers’ and students’ perceptions and their roles towards the use of Project Based Learning in a research context in the Republic of Kosovo. The study was completed by sixty students of three lower-secondary private schools in Kosovo and eight English language teachers who work there. The aim of this study was to investigate teachers’ perspectives on using PBL in their classes, the challenges they face while applying PBL, the most common benefits PBL implementation, (...) the materials used with this method, and the impact of PBL on students’ motivation to learn English as a Foreign Language. The data obtained from interviews with teachers highlight that teachers use PBL to a certain extent, though it works much effectively with lower-secondary and upper-secondary education. Teachers preferred to use Project Based Learning in their classrooms in general, although there appears to be some uncertainty between doing projects and Project Based Learning as a strategy. English language instructors have only seen themselves as facilitators of initiatives carried out in the classroom, resulting in a student-centered environment. In contrast to the past, it appears that teachers make extensive use of technology and involve students in a variety of activities to boost their learning and keep them engaged in PBL. Students on the other hand, through a very small number, highlighted that PBL is a better teaching approach in comparison to the traditional textbook teaching and learning. (shrink)

Recently, an increasing number of researchers in different parts of the world have been studying childhood from a point of view that highlights children who are considered “peripheral” – far from the ideal model associated with Western countries. We began with the intention of getting to know African children in Angola, informed by the belief that the preservation of languages is important in maintaining social knowledge and traditions. This text describes a preliminary study carried out in a culturally (...) rich location with strong traditions, but which is also marked by processes of cultural denial and devaluation. According to Ndombele and Timbane (2020), most Angolan children learn Portuguese at age seven, when they start school, especially in rural areas. This fact hinders the literacy learning process, and presents the risk of the disappearance of some native languages. Many schools teach children only in Portuguese. When visiting a school in Ganda, a rural area of Benguela, we found a group of children who, primarily through the games they played, keep the Umbundu language alive, and with that the identity and culture of their ancestors. Building on this, these children and their teachers created a syllable association game based on the music sung as they played. The game had two modalities - in the Umbundu language and in the Portuguese language – and functioned as a bilingual pedagogical tool. In the initial moment of offering the game for testing with the children, it was discovered that by singing the song of the game and discussing the possible solutions by themselves, they were able to make correct associations of the syllables in Umbundu, which they then translated into Portuguese. Thus, a resource was created together with the teachers, which, in addition to valuing the native language of the population, allowed the use of children's knowledge to create a didactic resource. In addition, it was possible to encounter the concept of childhood in the current world, deconstructing the idea of a single and ideal model, especially in light of those children who bring habits from home that do not always harmonize with the school routine, and often clash with Euro/Western model, which is based on age separation of classes as a requirement to guarantee learning, and tend to devalue other exchanges that help children learn. (shrink)

The present article discusses the Department of Kalam, its foundation, academic structuring, philosophy, and contribution to religious thought at the national and international level since the establishment of Ankara University Faculty of Divinity. The process regarding the field of Kalam since the establishment of Ankara University Faculty of Divinity in 1949 has been studied over two historical periods. The first is the period from its being taught as a course under the Chair of the History of Islam and Sects during (...) the establishment of the Faculty of Divinity to 1974 when it turned into an independent chair, and the second is the process from 1974 to the present. Higher religious education was continued in the Faculty of Theology, established under the Istanbul Dārulfunūn, which was constructed in the western style instead of the madrasahs that were closed in accordance with the Law of Unification of Education (Tawhid Tadrisāt) adopted on March 3, 1924.The faculty in question was closed in 1933 due to the shortage of students. Until Ankara University Faculty of Theology, which started its teaching activities in November 1949, was opened, there was no higher religious education for 16 years in Turkey. During this time, the need for experts trained in the field of religion emerged. In order to meet this need, Ankara University Faculty of Theology was opened. In the newly opened faculty, it is aimed to train theologians with versatile knowledge and perspective by teaching philosophy, psychology, sociology, foreign languages, as well as teaching disciplines related to the field of theology. One of the chairs in the faculty’s academic structure opened for this purpose was the chair of History of Islam and Sects. In Ankara University Faculty of Theology, where the academic structuring was organized according to the chair system, the science of Kalam was taught as a course within the Chair of the History of Islam and Sects until 1974. Within this chair, the teachings of Principles of Islam, the history of Islamic sects, and Kalam lessons were carried out. The first instructor of the chair was Prof. Yusuf ZiyaYörükân. Although there were changes in the academic staff during the process, one of the important names that contributed to the field of kalam until 1974 was Muhammad Tavît al-Tanji. These scholars not only made significant contributions to the field of Kalam in terms of method and content with their own studies but also taught scholars to work in this field after them.The doctoral advisor of HüseyinAtay, who is the founder of the Kalam Chair/Department, is M. Tavît al-Tancî. In 1974, when HüseyinAtay became a professor, the Kalam course was separated from the Chair of Islam and Sects and gained the status of an independent chair. HüseyinAtay is the architect of the transformation of Kalam from a lecture to a chair.As a result of Atay’s efforts, being a theologian in Turkey has turned into an identity rather than being a member of an academic discipline. In the studies carried out by Yörükân, Tancî, Atay and the academicians taught by them in Ankara University Faculty of Theology Department of Kalam, the emphasis on the Quran and reason, the importance of critical thinking in the field of theology, the human-centered theological thought, the effort to find solutions to current problems, the researches on Mu‘tazila and Maturidism, the study and translation activities that are carried out to bring the classical theology to the present day come to the fore. In the essence of academic studies conducted within this framework, the importance of correctly determining the distinction between the divine and human in the analysis of religious thought is emphasized. In addition, it is aimed to give a perspective on the meaning and value of human life. In the Department of Kalam, where the human-centered understanding of kalam is systematically dealt with on the basis of individual, responsibility, and morality, the science of kalam is structured not only as a system of thought consisting of abstract fictions but a discipline that has the function of developing and gaining a perspective on what is happening around us and in the World. (shrink)

continent. 1.4 (2011): 242—252. Introduction The following two works were produced by visual artist Jonas Staal and writer Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei during a visit as artists in residence at The Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa during the summer of 2010. Both works were produced in situ and comprised in both cases a public intervention conceived by Staal and a textual work conceived by Van Gerven Oei. It was their aim, in both cases, to produce complementary works that could (...) be read “through each other,” in which the movement of artistic construction would be imitated by textual deconstruction and vice versa. Both works deal with the way in which capital, apartheid, and monumentality are interwoven in South-African society. The Missing Link addresses a monument for democracy, erected on the premises of a private corporation running both an amusement park and the Apartheid Museum franchise. The textual intervention accompanying this public intervention investigates the limits of the inclusiveness of the anti-discrimination section in the South-African constitution, itself a monumental work of democracy. The Monument for the Distribution of Wealth deals with the history and eventual dissolution of a monumental square, commemorating the Soweto Uprising, in one of the poorest townships of Johannesburg. The history accompanying this public dismemberment of memory is equally fragmented, which is expressed by the many voices recounting uncertain and perhaps even irrelevant “facts” about the genius loci, the way in which the memorial space has actually entered into the memory of the inhabitants surrounding it. Next to their individual practices, Staal and Van Gerven Oei have worked together on a number of projects ever since 2007, including several art residencies. Their work involves an investigation of the different interfaces between art, politics, and public space in media ranging from theater and public interventions, to video installations and (co-authored) textual works. The Missing Link Missing Link (1) Missing Link (2) Missing Link (3) Intervention on the monument entitled The Seven Pillars of the Constitution , part of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Seven Pillars represent the constitutional values propagated in South Africa since the abolition of the apartheid regime. The monument and museum were built by the Gold Reef Resorts corporation, which is also responsible for the theme park and casino next to it. By placing the word “capitalism” on the wall surrounding the museum, the capitalist system and the constant social divisions that it implies are interpreted as sophistic continuations of apartheid politics. Through the capitalist system, apartheid is still operational within South African society. Whereas during the apartheid regime, the separation clearly ran along race divisions, in the current, “democratic” system, the same actual separation is sustained without it being an explicit element of the foundations of the country, i.e. the constitution. This intervention foregrounds the constant role of capitalism is both periods. At the same time the intervention acknowledges that contemporary Western artisthood is a mirror of the privileges that are offered by the capitalist system, and the type of artist that it produces. The intervention initiates a critical discourse concerning the capitalist system situated within the disaster of capitalism itself, in other words: through the desire to break with the presumption that art would be able to operate outside the capitalist system and to confirm that art—and the artist himself—is in fact modeled on this system. The public intervention by Staal was supplemented by a textual intervention by Van Gerven Oei: a proposition to alter the seventeenth amendment of the South African constitution. Even though the anti-discrimination legislation in South-Africa is one of the most stringent and inclusive in the world, one factor—wealth—remains outside its scope, thus continuing the schisms along racial lines produced during the apartheid regime: §9.3. The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language, birth, and wealth. Monument for the Distribution of Wealth Intervention concerning the June 16 Memorial Acre in Central Western Jabavu, one of the poorest townships of Johannesburg. The monument comprises a park on which different are placed recalling an important protest the black population against the former apartheid regime. In 1976, from a school adjacent to the park, they started a massive protest against the introduction of Afrikaans in the school curriculum. The police reacted violently, and shot several hundreds of students. The construction of the June 16 Memorial Acre was started in 2005, and from the start was the paragon of corruption. Coordinated by local politicians, some family members of the protest leader from 1976 gained control of the realization of the monument, outside the regulation through external institutions. The available budget of 41 million rand (at that time well over 5 million euro) was largely embezzled. In the meantime, the monument has become fully dilapidated and defaced. The park has become overgrown with weeds and covered in a layer of dirt, and the local population is slowly plundering the square to use the material for the construction and decoration of their own houses. The Monument for the Distribution of Wealth develops the dynamics already existent around the June 16 Memorial Acre. Without obtaining official permission in advance, several local inhabitants were hired to break down the monument, sort the materials, and offer it to the neighborhood. Thus, the redistribution of wealth after the fall of the apartheid regime is finally taking place, albeit from the mere remains of the capital that was once invested in the community. The words “monument” and “for free” are spray-painted on the stacks of material, both in English and Zulu, as these are locally the most common languages. Van Gerven Oei supplemented Staal’s public intervention with an account of the history of the monument based on a series of interviews. The account clarifies how the different interests within the protest 1976 are reflected in the exceeding decay of the park, and how in the end those interests were represented by the June 16 Memorial Acre. Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 1: Removing stones Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 3: Pulling down statues Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 4: Offering the material Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 5: Offering the material Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 6 The next day A Fragmentary History of the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth, Formerly Known as the June 16 Memorial Acre in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei The following text, based on interviews and online research aims to provide parts of a history of the park in front of Morris Isaacson High School in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto. The idea for the transformation of the park into a memorial site has its source in the events of June 16, 1976: the start of the the student uprising in Soweto. The development of the park was started in the early 1980s, and the actual transformation into a memorial site, the June 16 Memorial Acre, was initiated in 2005. Over the last few years, several monumental additions have been made to the park: A marble monument with three pillars was revealed on June 16, 2006. A sculpture of a book and several billboards on June 16, 2008. A sculpture of student leader Tsietsi Mashinini on June 16, 2010. The park was transformed into the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth on August 3, 2010. According to the entry “Youth Struggle” on the website South African History Online, the Bantu Education Act was introduced in 1953 . In 1954 , Dr Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs, stated: “What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? That is quite absurd.” According to the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, the Afrikaans Medium Decree was issued in 1974 , forcing all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 mix as languages of instruction. The Regional Director of Bantu Education (Northern Transvaal Region), J.G. Erasmus, told Circuit Inspectors and Principals of Schools that from January 1, 1975 , Afrikaans had to be used for mathematics, arithmetic, and social studies from standard five (7th grade). English would be the medium for general science and practical subjects. Indigenous languages would be used for religion instruction, music, and physical culture. According the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, on April 30, 1976 , students from the Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their example was followed by other schools in Soweto. A student from Morris Isaacson High School, Toboho “Tsietsi” Mashinini, proposed a meeting on June 13, 1976 to discuss further action. According to Weizmann Hamilton’s article “The Soweto Uprising 1976,” which appeared in the September 1986 edition of Inqaba Ya Basebenzi (Fortress of the Revolution), on June 13, 1976 , the South African Students’ Movement called a meeting at the Donaldson Community Center in Orlando. 300-400 Students representing 55 schools decided to hold a mass demonstration on June 16. According to Brian Mokhele, member of the Joint Community Safety Forum, Dr Edelstein was the first victim of the Soweto uprising and killed the day before the march on June 15, 1976 . Edelstein was an administrator at the pass office in Jabavu and gave golf courses to the local community. Edelstein was put in a garbage bin and pierced by pickaxes. The garbage bin was left at the very spot of the murder for many years. A few years ago, a child was beheaded at the same spot, and the basketball court next to it has been abandoned since. According to Marcus Neustetter, founder of the Trinity Session, this story is untrue. According the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, on June 16 , Tsietsi Mashinini led students from Morris Isaacson High School to join up with others who walked from Naledi High School. A crowd of between 3,000 and 10,000 eventually ended up near Orlando High School. According to Raymond Marlowe, a local photographer, Tsietsi Mashinini was heading the march. According to the entry “Hector Pieterson” on Wikipedia, Dr Edelstein died on June 16, 1976 , stoned to death by mob and left with a sign around his neck proclaiming “Beware Afrikaaners.” The first child to die that day was called Hastings Ndlovu. According to Pat Motsiri, Orlando West is claiming struggle heritage through the Hector Pieterson Museum, while Hector Pieterson was from Jabavu. According to Pat Motsiri, his generation effectively struggled between 1980 and 1991, forcing the release of Nelson Mandela and negotiations with the apartheid regime while the 1976-generation was safely in exile. Nevertheless, this has not been recognized in any monument. After the abolition of apartheid, the generation from 1976 returned from exile, occupied important government and ANC positions, creating an abundance of 1976 memorials and refusing to acknowledge that this was only possible because of the younger generation’s struggle. He calls this a generational conflict. According to Archibald Dlamini, the park officer responsible for the Memorial Acre, he started working for the municipality in 1978. In 1981/82 , Isaac Makhele from Pimville, who used to work in the cemetery business, was the first developer of the park. It used to be just a normal park until City Parks decided to develop the Memorial Acre in 2006. In 2007 the work was stopped by the community. According to Brian Mokhele, he left the country in 1989 after he participated in the riots of 1986. But when he returned in 1999 he found that nothing had changed. He says that they were promised to be protected by the Constitution, but that reality is different. The police uses fear to suppress them so that they don’t come out to talk openly. He has been arrested twice, both times harassed and tortured by the police, but in the end always released without indictment. He says that this is their way to threaten communities to back off from politics. According to Moses, who is sitting outside rolling a joint, Brian knows everything. He tells Brian to tell me everything he knows. According to Brian Mokhele, Tsietsi Mashinini was possibly murdered in 1990 during his exile in New York. Two weeks before he was supposed to return to South Africa, his papers in order, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances. His coffin was sealed when he was buried. According to Pat Motsiri, he came up with the idea for the Memorial Acre in 2003 . He submitted the documents for the proposal to the council, which sidelined him as soon as the budget came out in 2005 . According to Brian Mokhele, there was on estimation R 41,000,000 spent to redesign the park and turn it into the Memorial Acre. The millions were divided by Amos Masondo, the mayor of Soweto, the local councilor Bongani D. Zondi, and the director of the city of Johannesburg, Pat Lephunya. They were dividing the money between several contractors: Tsietsi Mashinini’s brothers were involved in the development of the park, they got the tender to do the green areas, the landscaping. Construction was done by other companies, some did the paving, the toilets, etc. EMBA, a private company appointed by the municipality was in control of the money flow, but the money was quickly gone. According to Raymond Marlowe, the contractor bought a BMW with the money. According to Archibald Dlamini, the Mashinini brothers got the tender, so the space would look more like the other places around in Soweto. It was agreed that after they were done, they would return the property to the municipality. They did whatever they could do. According to Mafaisa, a member of the Jabavu business community, he was one of the contractors for the landscaping and the pavement under Mpho Mashinini, one of the brothers. He says that I should contact Mavi for information on Mpho. According to Poi Stuurman, a local youth worker, Mafaisa is one of the guys who ran away with the money. According to Mavi, Mpho Mashinini was never a contractor. The contracts were organized by Sbu Butelezi, the former head of the Gauteng Department for Public Works. The June 16 Foundation and the Mashinini brothers will be the beneficiaries of the park when it is finished. According to Brian Mokhele, City Parks did not accept the Memorial Acre because it was not finished. The rest of the year, the unfinished park is not maintained, as should have happened. This was done deliberately so that in the end they can just clean the whole thing up and have a reason to redo the whole park. According to Brian Mokhele, the Mashinini brothers now work for the government. People that manipulate for money purposes always come from the government’s side. Because the park was left unfinished, the people from the neighborhood are taking away the stones to decorate their own homes with. According to Archibald Dlamini, because City Parks doesn’t accept responsibility of the park, he officially has nothing the guard, except for his cottage, which is municipal property. The thieves come at night and destroy the park, but he cannot do anything because he is sleeping. According to the website of the Thanda Foundation on June 16, 2006 a bronze statue of Hector Pieterson, the first child to die in the 1976 protests, made by Kobus Hattingh and Jacob Maponyane was unveiled in the Maponya Mall in Soweto. The statue is sculpted after the famous image shot by Sam Nzima of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying the dead body of the boy. The sculpture was sponsored by the Thanda Foundation, founded by the Swedish entrepreneur Dan Olofsson and South-African entrepreneur Matthews Phosa. According to the official website of the City of Johannesburg, the Memorial Acre and Artwork were unveiled in 2006. According to a blog post on sowetouprisings.com, the Memorial Acre was still under development on July 24, 2006. According to Archibald Dlamini, City Parks only cleans up the park once a year just before the June 16 celebrations. Everybody is waiting for the Mashinini brothers to finish their job. The last time he talked with them was in 2007 . According to a sign on the school grounds of the Morris Isaacson High School, the June 16 Trail will be finished in 2008 . According to a blog post on sowetouprisings.com, the Memorial Acre contains another monument erected in Tsietsi’s honor. The monument was created as part of the Sunday Times Heritage Public Art program. Its physical form resembles a giant book which symbolizes the crisis in education experienced in 1976. On the face of the book is the map of the route taken by the students from Morris Isaacson High School in Central Western Jabavu to Phefeni Junior Secondary in Orlando West (currently the site of the Hector Pieterson Museum), while the back cover of the ‘book’ is inscribed with a tribute to Tsietsi Mashinini. The monument was revealed on June 16, 2008 . According to Marcus Neustetter, the billboards on the Memorial Acre were part of a school project realized in 2008. Following several workshops, the students from different high schools along the June 16 Trail were invited to work with artists on the billboards, while the neighborhood community was invited to watch the process during the festivities on June 15 and 16, 2008 . The billboards were supposed to be removed because of construction works on the Memorial Acre, which never ended up happening. According to Brian Mokhele, the former toilet facilities were converted into a house for the park officer. This park officer has been working for city parks for more than 12-15 years, but does nothing here, because the park, including the new toilet buildings, is not finished. The government is now moving around looking for people to take this job because they stopped it. They confronted everybody who was going in and chased them away. According to John, in 2009 , some girls, around 16 or 17 years old, were raped by four men who had been drinking in a local shebeen. When the bar quit they said that they would go home by car, but instead raped the girls on the Memorial Acre nearby. This happened in the unfinished toilets, because the doors couldn’t be closed. According to Brian Mokhele, there used to be some fences around the park because of the construction work that was eventually stopped, but these were also stolen. According to Archibald Dlamini, people from the neighborhood started about two and a half years ago, and the last piece was stolen near the end of 2009 . Sometimes he would catch someone with a roll of fence, and then use it for his own cottage. According to the official website of the City of Johannesburg, a statue of Tsietsi Mashinini by Johannes Pokhela was revealed on June 16, 2010 , “Youth Day.” According to Shirley Makutoane, deputy principal of Isaac Morrison High School, the statue of Tsietsi Mashinini, funded by the June 16 Foundation, has temporarily been placed within the school perimeter. The statue will be moved to the Memorial Acre when it will be finished, in 2011 . According to Brian Mokhele, beside the June 16 Foundation, there is also a June 16 Memorial Acre Foundation. Both foundations are quarreling about the money involved in the Memorial Acre project. Nobody knows who’s involved in them. According to Marcus Neustetter, the June 16 Foundation consists of people that were part of 1976 protest movement, local government officials, representatives of the Hector Pieterson Museum, and the council. According to students from the Isaac Morrison High School, the statue of Tsietsi Mashinini is on the school ground because on the Memorial Acre it would be vandalized by youths from White City, an adjacent neighborhood. Accorcing to Brian Mokhele, the statue of Tsietsi should eventually be mounted on the Memorial Acre. It is wrong that the statue is in the school at the moment, because it is not a public school. He wants the statues to depict the massiveness of the force that was coming into Soweto after the protests. According to Brian Mokhele, City Parks, City of Jo’burg, City Lights, and SAPS are making some sort of plan to take the plan back. They want to remove the trees from the Memorial Acre, and redesign the Memorial Acre into a relaxing park, without political content. They want to depoliticize the square. In doing so,they will have their own employment and not use local workforces. According to Brian Mokhele, the community wants to remove the monuments, amphitheater, and sculptures from the Memorial Acre because they do not resemble anything. The sculptures should be depicting the truth of what happened, because the Memorial Acre is a political heritage site. He wants to involve the people that actually participated in the struggle to make the monument so that everyone can enjoy it and get a better understanding of the struggle heritage. Therefore, he proposes collective ideology in which everyone has a say. This would prevent future vandalization of the monument. According to Pat Motsiri, the sculptures must depict the event around June 16, 1976. Like the story of Dr Edelstein, who was pierced by pickaxes, forced into a garbage bin and burned alive. According to Jonas Staal, the Memorial Acre should be destroyed, its elements stacked on pallets, thus forming the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth . According to Mafaisa, his men can do the work quickly. He has about twenty men working under him. (shrink)

This is not a mathematics book, but a book about mathematics, which addresses both student and teacher, with a goal as practical as possible, namely to initiate and smooth the way toward the student’s full understanding of the mathematics taught in school. The customary procedural-formal approach to teaching mathematics has resulted in students’ distorted vision of mathematics as a merely formal, instrumental, and computational discipline. Without the conceptual base of mathematics, students develop over time a “mathematical anxiety” (...) and abandon any effort to understand mathematics, which becomes their “traditional enemy” in school. This work materializes the results of the inter- and trans-disciplinary research aimed toward the understanding of mathematics, which concluded that the fields with the potential to contribute to mathematics education in this respect, by unifying the procedural and conceptual approaches, are epistemology and philosophy of mathematics and science, as well as fundamentals and history of mathematics. These results argue that students’ fear of mathematics can be annulled through a conceptual approach, and a student with a good conceptual understanding will be a better problem solver. The author has identified those zones and concepts from the above disciplines that can be adapted and processed for familiarizing the student with this type of knowledge, which should accompany the traditional content of school mathematics. The work was organized so as to create for the reader a unificatory image of the complex nature of mathematics, as well as a conceptual perspective ultimately necessary to the holistic understanding of school mathematics. The author talks about mathematics to convince readers that to understand mathematics means first to understand it as a whole, but also as part of a whole. The nature of mathematics, its primary concepts (like numbers and sets), its structures, language, methods, roles, and applicability, are all presented in their essential content, and the explanation of non-mathematical concepts is done in an accessible language and with many relevant examples. (shrink)

The feeling thinking talking intervention was designed because early childhood seems to be a prime time for fostering young children's language skills. This intervention involved teaching teachers from N = 28 kindergarten groups in N = 13 German kindergartens language support strategies to be used in everyday conversations with the children in their care. The FTT intervention was evaluated in a business-as-usual control group design with N = 281 children who were individually tested using objective (...) tests on grammar, vocabulary and working memory before and after the FTT intervention, and in a follow-up about one year after T1. After propensity matching was applied, multilevel models demonstrated that the children taught by the intervention group teachers made faster progress in their understanding of sentences, their application of morphological rules, and their memory for sentences when numerous covariates were controlled. Results suggest that complex language processing abilities in young children can be promoted by a teacher-led intervention in early childhood education. Improved language skills will further all children's academic and social success in school. (shrink)

The article reveals the problems of listening comprehension in a foreign-language audience, in particular, by students who are non-native speakers. The theoretical part is a brief characteristic of listening as a type of speech activity: the content of the term, its internal components – the psychophysiological mechanisms involved, the difficulties associated with them. In the practical part the authors of the article demonstrate exercises from the purposefully developed lesson on the removal of difficulties in the perception of (...) sounding speech in non-native speakers children of middle school age, consisting in the systematic development of mechanisms of listening comprehension. Based on the analysis of the experimental lesson, solutions for systematic and consistent work in the classes within the additional remedial course in the Russian language in order to prevent errors and difficulties, as well as to facilitate the process of listening comprehension are proposed. (shrink)

Some students who possess the same cognitive skill set as their counterparts but who neither speak nor write English fluently have to contend with an unnecessary barrier to academic success. While an administrative top-down approach has been in progress for many years to address this issue, enhancement of student performance begins in the classroom. Thus, we argue that instructors ought to implement a more organic bottom-up approach. If it is possible for instructors to make class content available in other (...) languages, such as Spanish, without thereby compromising something of comparable pedagogical value, then they ought to do so. In fact, we provide here Anselm’s Ontological Argument rendered in Spanish to show how, when translated, it provides native Spanish speakers with greater accessibility to difficult material. Then, we consider the possible beneficial implications of doing so for university students. (shrink)

Form-focused instruction can help second language learners notice the forms of language, which is conducive to the acquisition of linguistic forms. Two types of FFIs had been proposed, including focus-on-formS and focus-on-form. Previously, studies on FFI in L2 classroom teaching have focused mainly on the influence of two types of FFIs on the L2 acquisition of grammar and vocabulary. The influence of FonFs and FonF on L2 oral production, however, has been addressed less often. The advantages and (...) disadvantages of different teaching methods in FonFs and FonF have not been well investigated. On the basis of Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis, VanPatten’s input processing hypothesis, and Long’s interactive hypothesis, we investigated the effects of teaching goals, teaching steps, and interactive activities in FonFs and FonF on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of 32 native Korean speakers’ L2 Chinese oral production. We found that FFI significantly improved the performance of L2 Chinese oral production, although different FFIs had different effects on complexity, accuracy, and fluency. FonF and FonFs could improve both complexity and accuracy, whereas FonF also significantly improved fluency, which was not observed in FonFs. Furthermore, we found that the level of L2 proficiency could modulate the interaction between instruction methods and learning outcomes. For low-proficiency learners, FonF was more helpful for the improvement of fluency. For high-proficiency learners, FonFs was more helpful for the improvement of accuracy. These results demonstrated that teachers should pay attention to the interaction between specific teaching conditions with different L2 proficiency and learning outcomes when implementing FFI. The findings of this study have important implications for the design of procedures and interactive activities of L2 spoken Chinese teaching. (shrink)

With specific reference to the teaching of Irish and English in Ireland, I am concerned in this paper with the experiences of language dispossession and language pedagogy. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s key concepts of ‘hospitality’ and ‘monolingualism’, I argue that in Ireland the first of these experiences cannot be separated from the second. Taking into consideration its colonial past as well as the changing linguistic profile of its present, Ireland is at once ‘host’ and ‘hostage’ (...) to the English language and this deconstructing identity has important ramifications for the country’s systematic teaching of English as well as Irish. The primary philosophical text guiding my discussion is Derrida’s ‘Monolingualism of the Other’. (shrink)