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Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2020

Kouider Mokhtari, Carine Strebel, Florin Mihai and Edwidge Crevecoeur-Bryant

In this chapter, the authors provide an introspective account of how teachers in mainstream classrooms can use questioning to more effectively differentiate literacy instruction…

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors provide an introspective account of how teachers in mainstream classrooms can use questioning to more effectively differentiate literacy instruction for English learners across subject areas. The authors offer a rationale for constructively responsive questioning and share tools and strategies for adapting levels of questioning to students’ English proficiency and grade levels with the goal of strengthening instruction and promoting student engagement in learning.

Details

What’s Hot in Literacy: Exemplar Models of Effective Practice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-874-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1995

Minako O'Hagan

This paper examines the implications on translation services of the exploding use of new telecommunications technologies, with particular emphasis on computer communications in…

Abstract

This paper examines the implications on translation services of the exploding use of new telecommunications technologies, with particular emphasis on computer communications in cyberspace, represented by the Internet. The relationship between language translation and cyberspace in an advanced information society is explored to show that the new communications environment is both creating demand for translation and helping to meet that demand. The paper concludes that the symbiosis between translation services and the emerging communications environment could culminate in ‘a teletranslation service’ as an International Value‐Added Network Service (IVANS) with worldwide accessibility using networked translators best to meet growing demand.

Details

Aslib Proceedings, vol. 47 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0001-253X

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2005

Krishna S. Dhir

Three distinct trends are evolving that characterize the challenges facing corporate planners in managing language as a corporate asset. These are the evolution of the knowledge…

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Abstract

Purpose

Three distinct trends are evolving that characterize the challenges facing corporate planners in managing language as a corporate asset. These are the evolution of the knowledge economy, the globalization of business and economy, and the increasing diversity of the workforce. These trends call for attention to the role language plays in the creation of intellectual and organizational capital. Linguists have been hampered by their inability to model how linguistic conditions affect economic processes. They have long attempted to assess the economic value of language as a commodity, but with little success. The purpose of this article is to describe language as an asset, and argue that recent advances in decision sciences have sufficiently removed the deficit in theoretical and empirical research that challenged the linguists.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing an analogy between language and currency, this article identifies the functions that language must perform in terms of exchange, accounting and storage of information, knowledge and know‐how.

Findings

Factors that contribute to the value of a language are discussed through comparative analysis of these functions from the perspectives of linguists, economists and decision analysts. Based on the Social Judgment Theory, the article develops a judgment‐analytic framework for the assessment of the value of a language.

Practical implications

Concluding that the corporate and community planning perspectives are divergent, the paper identifies the direction for future research to inform formulation of language policies. The value of a language may be affected by the degree to which the language is used in the demographic community defining an organization's strategic environment, the investment in the language relative to other available languages, demand for the language as a commodity within the organization's strategic community, and so on.

Originality/value

With such conception of language, corporations can begin to think in terms of a portfolio of language assets much in the same way as it thinks of portfolio of financial currency assets.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 10 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 30 October 2007

Barry R. Chiswick and Paul W. Miller

One in nine people between the ages of 18 and 64 in the US, and every second foreign-born person in this age bracket, speak Spanish at home. And whereas around 80 percent of adult…

Abstract

One in nine people between the ages of 18 and 64 in the US, and every second foreign-born person in this age bracket, speak Spanish at home. And whereas around 80 percent of adult immigrants in the US from non-English-speaking countries other than Mexico are proficient in English, only about 50 percent of adult immigrants from Mexico are proficient. The use of a language other than English at home, and proficiency in English, are both analyzed in this paper using economic models and data on adult males from the 2000 US Census. The results demonstrate the importance of immigrants’ educational attainment, their age at migration, and years spent in the US to their language skills. The immigrants’ mother tongue is also shown to affect their English proficiency; immigrants with a mother tongue more distant from English being less likely to be proficient. Finally, immigrants living in ethnic–linguistic enclaves have lesser proficiency in English than immigrants who live in predominately English-speaking areas of the US. The results for females are generally very similar to those for males. The findings from an ordered probit approach to estimation are similar to the findings from a binary probit model, and the conclusions drawn from the analyses mirror those in studies based on the 1980 and 1990 US Censuses. Thus, the model of language skills presented appears to be remarkably robust across time and estimation techniques, and between the genders.

Details

Immigration
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1391-4

Article
Publication date: 7 June 2013

Bob Little

Globalisation has made English today's international business language. This article aims to explore what this means for suppliers of English language training – and how corporate

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Abstract

Purpose

Globalisation has made English today's international business language. This article aims to explore what this means for suppliers of English language training – and how corporate buyers of this training can get value for money from them.

Design/methodology/approach

The article outlines research by goFLUENT – a leading provider of Business English training.

Findings

Companies are looking for employees who can perform well in today's multi‐cultural, multi‐lingual business environment. For those speaking another language there will be more job opportunities, higher pay and faster careers. Increasingly, companies require or give higher priority to employees who speak a second or even a third language – and that is making language learning essential to one's professional growth.

Practical implications

Because of the variety of products and services available, it is helpful for suppliers to respond to companies' RFP requirements in free form and through their own company brochures and materials. However, in order for respondents to understand these companies' scoring systems ‐ and for suppliers to be able to make equivalent comparisons across criteria – suppliers should ask them to answer specific questions.

Social implications

Only 400 million or so of the world's seven billion people speak English as their native tongue but, currently, it is the Chinese who are learning English. Despite the rise of India and China as global economic powers, over two billion people speak English in these countries alone ‐ and the demand for English speakers continues to grow. With emerging markets, there is an appreciable influx of speakers of Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese but, for these people to work on an international scale, proficiency in English is the inevitable standard.

Originality/value

This article focuses on a theme for which there is currently little information of any real substance.

Details

Industrial and Commercial Training, vol. 45 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0019-7858

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 1995

Brian Bloch

Illustrates the rising significance of foreign‐language trainingwith respect to employment opportunities in commerce and industry. Drawson a wide‐ranging and diverse base of…

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Abstract

Illustrates the rising significance of foreign‐language training with respect to employment opportunities in commerce and industry. Draws on a wide‐ranging and diverse base of literature in order to indicate the value of learning a foreign language, the manner in which such training can be utilized and several other fundamental considerations relating to language and employment. Issues analysed include: the linkage of linguistic with other skills, which students are likely to benefit the most from language training, the impact of various levels of proficiency, language for business as opposed to general language training and the cultural element in terms of career prospects. Makes objective and subjective evaluations as to the significance of these various issues with the aim of assisting students, employees and educational institutions in assessing the benefits and costs, advantages and shortcomings of different types and levels of language education.

Details

International Journal of Career Management, vol. 7 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0955-6214

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1980

Requests to the Lending Division, which totalled 2,919,000, increased by 2% over 1978/79 — an increase due entirely to a further large growth in demand from foreign libraries…

Abstract

Requests to the Lending Division, which totalled 2,919,000, increased by 2% over 1978/79 — an increase due entirely to a further large growth in demand from foreign libraries, which made 544,000 requests. Performance (84% of valid requests satisfied from stock, 9.5% sent to back‐up libraries or supplied with locations) was much the same as in the previous year. A test of minimal bibliographic checking of requests yielded promising results. A rail‐van transport scheme was started in the West Midlands, and plans were made for further schemes. A Keyword Index to Serial Titles held by the Division, produced originally for internal use, was published. The number of currently received serials rose by 5% to 54,000, and 119,000 monographs (including 44,000 donations) were added to stock; attempts were made to improve further coverage of report literature. The extension to the Urquhart building, containing 42 miles of shelving, was almost completed. New price rates for article translations put this service on a sounder financial footing but were accompanied by a fall in demand. Courses in the use of the literature had to be abandoned for reasons of staffing.

Details

Interlending Review, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0140-2773

Article
Publication date: 3 May 2016

Andrew Goodwyn

This paper aims to provide a critical discussion and re-evaluation of the Personal Growth (PG) model of English, noting that the summer of 2016 marks 50 years since the Dartmouth…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a critical discussion and re-evaluation of the Personal Growth (PG) model of English, noting that the summer of 2016 marks 50 years since the Dartmouth Conference and the publication of John Dixon’s seminal response to the conference in Growth Through English (1967). The influence of the London School of English was reaching its height at the time with its emphasis on the development of the individual student, the importance of identity, the fundamental role of talk and the rejection of the importance of studying only the traditional literary canon. Dixon argued that PG needed to replace the previous “models” of English, one being “skills”, and the other “cultural heritage”. So strong was that influence that in 1988, the model of “Personal Growth” was one of the five identified by the authors of the first National Curriculum for English in England; it was placed first in the list, but the authors argued the five models were “equal” (the other four were “Adult Needs”, “Cultural Heritage”, “Cross-curricular” (CC) and “Cultural Analysis”.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey-style research begun in 1990, then throughout the next 25 years, mostly in England but also in the USA. It has investigated the views principally of the classroom teachers of English about their beliefs about the subject and also their views of official versions.

Findings

These investigations have demonstrated the importance of all the models (except CC, considered by English teachers to be a model for all teachers), but always the primacy of PG as the key model that matches English teachers’ beliefs about the purpose and value of English as a school subject and argues for the demonstrable, yet problematic, centrality of PG.

Research limitations/implications

Any survey has limitations in terms of the sample, the number of returns and in the constraining nature of questionnaires. However, these surveys provide consistent results over nearly 30 years and have always encouraged respondents to offer qualitative comments. Surveys always have a value in providing an overview of attitudes and feelings.

Practical implications

English teachers remain convinced that student-centred progressive education offers the most valuable form of English for all students and they find themselves profoundly at odds with official prescriptions. This unquestionably has a damaging effect on teachers’ motivations and can lead them to leave their profession.

Originality/value

The paper provides a careful rereading of Growth Through English, so often simply taken for granted, and represents its key, neglected arguments in the more balanced 1975 edition. It provides research-based evidence of why the PG model remains central to English teachers and how the international discussions of the Dartmouth seminar still stimulate new thinking, for example, at the 2015 International Federation for the Teaching of English (IFTE) conference. The paper outlines why PG has been so resilient, and also, partly based on data from the 2015 IFTE conference, argues for a future model of English, which is based on PG but with a more critical and social dimension.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 15 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 August 2012

Servet Çelik

The purpose of this article is to underscore the issues of empathy in narrative inquiry, particularly in cases where the researcher shares numerous characteristics in common with…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to underscore the issues of empathy in narrative inquiry, particularly in cases where the researcher shares numerous characteristics in common with the research population. The author explores the use of narrative as a qualitative research tool, as well as a means for addressing the challenges of maintaining objectivity in circumstances where empathy and understanding may overpower the need for unbiased reporting.

Design/methodology/approach

This narrative case study, which is based on the author's doctoral research, was designed according to a framework of critical theory, as the original intent of the project was to expose the challenges and injustices faced by Turkish study‐abroad scholarship recipients who are required to serve as university faculty members in the Turkish university system upon completion of their graduate degrees.

Findings

The researcher found that, in opposition to his belief that government‐sponsored scholars were able to contribute significantly to higher education, the strict hierarchy and bureaucratic nature of the Turkish university system prevented them from accomplishing their objectives.

Originality/value

This study is unique in that it is the only qualitative investigation which relates the personal narratives of Turkish faculty members who, at the same time they are charged with bringing innovation to a stagnating system, are deterred by that same system from achieving this aim. As such, it serves to advocate for this marginalized group and to call attention to the need for meaningful and comprehensive reform.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 12 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 8 August 2005

Margo A. Mastropieri, Thomas E. Scruggs, Janet Graetz and Nicole Conners

This chapter reports on the results from several extended qualitative investigations of co-teaching in science and social studies content area classes, on both elementary and…

Abstract

This chapter reports on the results from several extended qualitative investigations of co-teaching in science and social studies content area classes, on both elementary and secondary levels. In these investigations, co-teaching partners were studied and interviewed over several years, with the view of uncovering attitudes and procedures closely associated with successful collaborative partnerships. In some cases, these investigations took place in the context of implementation of research-based instructional strategies. Analysis of data from these investigations revealed that there was considerable variability in the way co-teaching practices were implemented, the attitudes toward co-teaching expressed by teachers, and the success of the co-teaching partnerships. It was thought that several variables, including content expertise, concerns for high-stakes testing, and the personal compatibility of co-teachers played an important role in the success of the co-teaching relationship.

Details

Cognition and Learning in Diverse Settings
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-353-2

1 – 10 of over 66000