New ICT Literacies and Holistic Approaches for the Effective Learning of Languages in Tertiary Education

Abstract: This paper summarizes the evolution of different subjects of English for Specific Purposes and English for Academic and Professional Purposes. The aim here is to show a continuum of changes that have not started and nished in one subject alone but affect the whole curriculum. After the discussion section where advantages and drawbacks of the changes introduced are analyzed, we arrive at some conclusions regarding this ve year period of development in the approach to the teaching and learning of the specific or academic English language in the Escuela Universitaria de Ingeniería Técnica de Telecomunicación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Resumen: Este trabajo resume la evolución que han experimentado distintas asignaturas de Inglés para Fines Especí cos e Inglés para Fines Académicos y Profesionales. El objetivo principal es mostrar cómo el esfuerzo por mejorar las asignaturas afecta al currículo como un todo y no sólo a cada una de las asignaturas. Tras el análisis de algunas de las ventajas e inconvenientes de los cambios introducidos, se alcanzan algunas conclusiones sobre la evolución que han sufrido este tipo de asignaturas durante los últimos cinco años en la Escuela Universitaria de Ingeniería Técnica de Telecomunicación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Assessment for English language education on the programs at the Agricultural Engineering School of Madrid

The convergence process among European academic degrees pursues the exchange of graduate students and the adaptation of university programs to social demand. Within the framework of the European Higher Education, European universities will need to be more competitive not only by increasing or maintaining the student enrolment, but also in their academic performance. Thus, the reinforcing of English language education within the University Programs might play an important role to reach these objectives. In this sense, a complete survey was accomplished at the Agricultural Egineering School of Madrid (ETSIA ) addressing issues such as: identification the needs for bilingual instruction at ETSIA, identification resources needed and interest and background in English language of students and professors (San José et al., 2013). The conclusions and recommendations to promote the bilingual instruction in the ETSIA, taking into account the approaches followed by other Spanish universities, are presented in this work.

Relationships among multiple intelligences, motor performance and academic achievement in secondary school children

This study examines the relationships between multiple intelligences, academic achievement and motor performance in a group of secondary school children. Four hundred and eighty schoolchildren participated in this study (171 female and 309 male) with an average age of 13.33 years (SD: 1.41). The Revised self-efficacy Inventory for Multiple Intelligences (IAIM-R) and the motor test Sportcomp were applied, and the average results of the academic year they had made were obtained. The analysis of the results showed how female scored significantly higher on the Linguistic, Spatial and Interpersonal intelligences, and older pupils scored significantly higher on the linguistic and naturalistic intelligences. It was the logical-mathematical intelligence which showed significant relationships with academic performance and it was the intelligence that better predicted this achievement. It was the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence that was significantly related to motor competence and the best intelligence that predicted its achievement. Finally, indicate that schoolchildren with better scores in the motor test were those who scored higher in both academic achievement and all the multiple intelligences, with the exception of musical intelligence.

Evaluating a web-based clinical decision support system for language disorders screening in a nursery school

Background: Early and effective identification of developmental disorders during childhood remains a critical task for the international community. The second highest prevalence of common developmental disorders in children are language delays, which are frequently the first symptoms of a possible disorder. Objective: This paper evaluates a Web-based Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) whose aim is to enhance the screening of language disorders at a nursery school. The common lack of early diagnosis of language disorders led us to deploy an easy-to-use CDSS in order to evaluate its accuracy in early detection of language pathologies. This CDSS can be used by pediatricians to support the screening of language disorders in primary care. Methods: This paper details the evaluation results of the ?Gades? CDSS at a nursery school with 146 children, 12 educators, and 1 language therapist. The methodology embraces two consecutive phases. The first stage involves the observation of each child?s language abilities, carried out by the educators, to facilitate the evaluation of language acquisition level performed by a language therapist. Next, the same language therapist evaluates the reliability of the observed results. Results: The Gades CDSS was integrated to provide the language therapist with the required clinical information. The validation process showed a global 83.6% (122/146) success rate in language evaluation and a 7% (7/94) rate of non-accepted system decisions within the range of children from 0 to 3 years old. The system helped language therapists to identify new children with potential disorders who required further evaluation. This process will revalidate the CDSS output and allow the enhancement of early detection of language disorders in children. The system does need minor refinement, since the therapists disagreed with some questions from the CDSS knowledge base (KB) and suggested adding a few questions about speech production and pragmatic abilities. The refinement of the KB will address these issues and include the requested improvements, with the support of the experts who took part in the original KB development. Conclusions: This research demonstrated the benefit of a Web-based CDSS to monitor children?s neurodevelopment via the early detection of language delays at a nursery school. Current next steps focus on the design of a model that includes pseudo auto-learning capacity, supervised by experts.

A new way of teaching different subjects in a foreign language in the Building Engineering Degree at the Universidad Politécnica.

The European Union has been promoting linguistic diversity for many years as one of its main educational goals. This is an element that facilitates student mobility and student exchanges between different universities and countries and enriches the education of young undergraduates. In particular, a higher degree of competence in the English language is becoming essential for engineers, architects and researchers in general, as English has become the lingua franca that opens up horizons to internationalisation and the transfer of knowledge in today’s world. Many experts point to the Integrated Approach to Contents and Foreign Languages System as being an option that has certain benefits over the traditional method of teaching a second language that is exclusively based on specific subjects. This system advocates teaching the different subjects in the syllabus in a language other than one’s mother tongue, without prioritising knowledge of the language over the subject. This was the idea that in the 2009/10 academic year gave rise to the Second Language Integration Programme (SLI Programme) at the Escuela Arquitectura Técnica in the Universidad Politécnica Madrid (EUATM-UPM), just at the beginning of the tuition of the new Building Engineering Degree, which had been adapted to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) model. This programme is an interdisciplinary initiative for the set of subjects taught during the semester and is coordinated through the Assistant Director Office for Educational Innovation. The SLI Programme has a dual goal; to familiarise students with the specific English terminology of the subject being taught, and at the same time improve their communication skills in English. A total of thirty lecturers are taking part in the teaching of eleven first year subjects and twelve in the second year, with around 120 students who have voluntarily enrolled in a special group in each semester. During the 2010/2011 academic year the degree of acceptance and the results of the SLI Programme have been monitored. Tools have been designed to aid interdisciplinary coordination and to analyse satisfaction, such as coordination records and surveys. The results currently available refer to the first and second year and are divided into specific aspects of the different subjects involved and into general aspects of the ongoing experience.

Analysing written production competence descriptors for academic and professional purposes and their calibration to the CEFR

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) "describes in a comprehensive way what language learners have to learn to do in order to use a language for communication and what knowledge and skills they have to develop so as to be able to act effectively" (Council of Europe, 2001: 1). This paper reports on the findings of two studies whose purpose was to assess written production competence descriptors meant for their inclusion into the Academic and Professional English Language Portfolio KELP) for students of engineering and architecture. The main objective of these studies was to establish whether the language competence descriptors were a satisfactory valid tool in their language programmes from the point of view of clarity, relevance and reliability, as perceived by the students and fellow English for Academic Purposes (RAP) / English for Science and Technology (EST) instructors. The studies shed light on how to improve unsatisfactory descriptors. Results show that the final descriptor lists were on the whole well calibrated and fairly well written: the great majority was considered valid for both teachers and students involved.

Simulation of academic performance rates, estimation of indicators of subjects and of a complete degree

The purpose of this paper is to present a program written in Matlab-Octave for the simulation of the time evolution of student curricula, i.e, how students pass their subjects along time until graduation. The program computes, from the simulations, the academic performance rates for the subjects of the study plan for each semester as well as the overall rates, which are a) the efficiency rate defined as the ratio of the number of students passing the exam to the number of students who registered for it and b) the success rate, defined as the ratio of the number of students passing the exam to the number of students who not only registered for it but also actually took it. Additionally, we compute the rates for the bachelor academic degree which are established for Spain by the National Quality Evaluation and Accreditation Agency (ANECA) and which are the graduation rate (measured as the percentage of students who finish as scheduled in the plan or taking an extra year) and the efficiency rate (measured as the percentage of credits which a student who graduated has really taken). The simulation is done in terms of the probabilities of passing all the subjects in their study plan. The application of the simulator to Polytech students in Madrid, where requirements for passing are specially stiff in first and second year subjects, is particularly relevant to analyze student cohorts and the probabilities of students finishing in the minimum of four years, or taking and extra year or two extra years, and so forth. It is a very useful tool when designing new study plans. The calculation of the probability distribution of the random variable "number of semesters a student has taken to complete the curricula and graduate" is difficult or even unfeasible to obtain analytically, and this is even truer when we incorporate uncertainty in parameter estimation. This is why we apply Monte Carlo simulation which not only provides illustration of the stochastic process but also a method for computation. The stochastic simulator is proving to be a useful tool for identification of the subjects most critical in the distribution of the number of semesters for curriculum vitae (CV) completion and subsequently for a decision making process in terms of CV planning and passing standards in the University. Simulations are performed through a graphical interface where also the results are presented in appropriate figures. The Project has been funded by the Call for Innovation in Education Projects of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) through a Project of its school Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales ETSII during the period September 2010-September 2011.

Anabolic drugs consumption of high school students participating in school championships of physical education

This paper aims to analyse the use of anabolic drugs among Greek students participating in school championships of physical education (PE). In order to do it, a survey was conducted during the 2008 to 2009 academic year in suburban, urban and metropolitan areas in Greece. The sample was 2,535 high school students from the 10 to 12th grade, participating in the school physical education championships. The results showed that 9.6% of boys and 3.7% of girls reported that they had used anabolic drugs sometime in the past whereas 11.2% boys and 4.8% girls reported that they would intend to use them in the future. This confirms that anabolic steroids are an important problem among adolescents, and educational programs should increase their knowledge about these drugs. Information should come not only from the state, but also from coaches, teachers, trainers and parents.

WSM : metodología de web scraping para Android y ejemplificación mediante la aplicación UPMDroid

En la realización de este proyecto se ha tratado principalmente la temática del web scraping sobre documentos HTML en Android. Como resultado del mismo, se ha propuesto una metodología para poder realizar web scraping en aplicaciones implementadas para este sistema operativo y se desarrollará una aplicación basada en esta metodología que resulte útil a los alumnos de la escuela. Web scraping se puede definir como una técnica basada en una serie de algoritmos de búsqueda de contenido con el fin de obtener una determinada información de páginas web, descartando aquella que no sea relevante. Como parte central, se ha dedicado bastante tiempo al estudio de los navegadores y servidores Web, y del lenguaje HTML presente en casi todas las páginas web en la actualidad así como de los mecanismos utilizados para la comunicación entre cliente y servidor ya que son los pilares en los que se basa esta técnica. Se ha realizado un estudio de las técnicas y herramientas necesarias, aportándose todos los conceptos teóricos necesarios, así como la proposición de una posible metodología para su implementación. Finalmente se ha codificado la aplicación UPMdroid, desarrollada con el fin de ejemplificar la implementación de la metodología propuesta anteriormente y a la vez desarrollar una aplicación cuya finalidad es brindar al estudiante de la ETSIST un soporte móvil en Android que le facilite el acceso y la visualización de aquellos datos más importantes del curso académico como son: el horario de clases y las calificaciones de las asignaturas en las que se matricule. Esta aplicación, además de implementar la metodología propuesta, es una herramienta muy interesante para el alumno, ya que le permite utilizar de una forma sencilla e intuitiva gran número de funcionalidades de la escuela solucionando así los problemas de visualización de contenido web en los dispositivos. ABSTRACT. The main topic of this project is about the web scraping over HTML documents on Android OS. As a result thereof, it is proposed a methodology to perform web scraping in deployed applications for this operating system and based on this methodology that is useful to the ETSIST school students. Web scraping can be defined as a technique based on a number of content search algorithms in order to obtain certain information from web pages, discarding those that are not relevant. As a main part, has spent considerable time studying browsers and Web servers, and the HTML language that is present today in almost all websites as well as the mechanisms used for communication between client and server because they are the pillars which this technique is based. We performed a study of the techniques and tools needed, providing all the necessary theoretical concepts, as well as the proposal of a possible methodology for implementation. Finally it has codified UPMdroid application, developed in order to illustrate the implementation of the previously proposed methodology and also to give the student a mobile ETSIST Android support to facilitate access and display those most important data of the current academic year such as: class schedules and scores for the subjects in which you are enrolled. This application, in addition to implement the proposed methodology is also a very interesting tool for the student, as it allows a simple and intuitive way of use these school functionalities thus fixing the viewing web content on devices.

Integrated approach to foreign language in the building engineering degree at the Universidad Politécnica Madrid

The European Union has been promoting linguistic diversity for many years as one of its main educational goals. This is an element that facilitates student mobility and student exchanges between different universities and countries and enriches the education of young undergraduates. In particular,a higher degree of competence in the English language is becoming essential for engineers, architects and researchers in general, as English has become the lingua franca that opens up horizons to internationalisation and the transfer of knowledge in today’s world. Many experts point to the Integrated Approach to Contents and Foreign Languages System as being an option that has certain benefits over the traditional method of teaching a second language that is exclusively based on specific subjects. This system advocates teaching the different subjects in the syllabus in a language other than one’s mother tongue, without prioritising knowledge of the language over the subject. This was the idea that in the 2009/10 academic year gave rise to the Second Language Integration Programme (SLI Programme) at the Escuela Arquitectura Tecnica in the Universidad Politecnica Madrid (EUATM-UPM), just at the beginning of the tuition of the new Building Engineering Degree, which had been adapted to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) model. This programme is an interdisciplinary initiative for the set of subjects taught during the semester and is coordinated through the Assistant Director Office for Educational Innovation. The SLI Programme has a dual goal; to familiarise students with the specific English terminology of the subject being taught, and at the same time improve their communication skills in English. A total of thirty lecturers are taking part in the teaching of eleven first year subjects and twelve in the second year, with around 120 students who have voluntarily enrolled in a special group in each semester. During the 2010/2011 academic year the degree of acceptance and the results of the SLI Programme are being monitored. Tools have been designed to aid interdisciplinary coordination and to analyse satisfaction, such as coordination records and surveys. The results currently available refer to the first semester of the year and are divided into specific aspects of the different subjects involved and into general aspects of the ongoing experience.

A Porposal: "Agro-ERASMUS"

The rural population is getting smaller as percentage of the total population in the countries. There is a constant depopulation of rural areas to urban areas. The most extreme data are in countries like USA, where the rural population is 1.5%, from which 1% of that amount is part time and only 0.5% full time. On the other side, we have countries with more than 50% rural population. Related to training, cultural development, business and specific weight in society, rural residents have no significance in their societies. As they are few, and separated across the territory they have no influence on their societies. Comparing the USA farmer with one from the EU, we see that the American one is a businessperson and the European one, in most cases is a farm worker. To reduce this gap between these different farmers, we believe that we must train the new generations of children belonging to farming Europe. They must have a common language, English; they must know other countries culture and farming systems, live and network with other young Europeans colleagues,future young farmers. It is what we have coined as AGRO-ERASMUS. A project to be placed within the EU Common Agriculture Policies. The project must be designed before its implementation. Even some previous experience should make better viability. It should make use of a network of agricultural universities in several European countries. Each university would build a "farm school" where young people would learn "English?, and visit and work in small agricultural practices with a correct use of the time. One important subject dealing with should be agribusiness. The procedure based on the ?Farm School? (F-S) experience, should start with young people from 13 years up to 18 years. Their attendance, every summer, to the F-S should be rotated between different countries besides their own. The first and second year, with young people 13/14 years old, the Farm School would last less than three weeks in an English speaking country (Ireland, UK or someone else). They should live with a local family the time they stay outside of the Farm School (F-S). This two years period must be devoted to learn and become familiar with the English language and cultural differences. The rest of the four years left, the Farm Schools will have longer duration and be placed in other countries from the network. The living way would be in multinational teams of young people where the only spoken language would be English. After six years of summer oexistence speaking English and learning new competences and skills with colleagues from other countries, we would have a great team of young and future European farmers, able to travel free and confident through the whole Europe and ready to be engaged in productive, commercial and research activities. These new young farmers may revive European agriculture and would not look any more like rural habitants, but international business-farmers, professionally speaking. In a brief survey among the assistants to the Fifth International Academic Conference titled "Alternative Income Sources in Small Agricultural Holdings of the European Union" held in Krakow (PL) in June 2015, participants from universities and countries like Poland, Hungary, Rep. Czech, Portugal, Romania, etc., expressed the necessity of addressing this problem in a new and bold way.