The interactional space in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classrooms

Aquest estudi pretén investigar els intercanvis verbals mestre/a – aprenent(s) en dos contextos d'instrucció diferents: classes amb un enfocament AICLE (Aprenentatge Integrat de Continguts Curriculars i Llengua Estrangera) on s’aprenen continguts no lingüístics a través de l’anglès, per una banda, i classes 'tradicionals' d'anglès com a llengua estrangera, on l’anglès és alhora objecte d’estudi i vehicle de comunicació, per una altra banda. Més concretament, les preguntes que formula el/la mestre/a, la producció oral dels aprenents i el 'feedback' del/de la mestre/a en els episodis d’atenció a la forma s’han estudiat a la llum de les principals teories provinents del camp de l’Adquisició de Segones Llengües (SLA) per tal de demostrar el seu paper en l’aprenentatge de l’anglès. El corpus de dades prové de l’enregistrament de 7 sessions AICLE i d'11 sessions EFL enregistrades en format àudio i vídeo en dos centres públics d’Educació Primària (EP) de Catalunya. A cadascuna de les escoles, el/la mateix/a mestre/a és l’encarregat/da dels dos tipus d’instrucció amb el mateix grup d’aprenents (10-11 anys d’edat), fet que permet eliminar variables individuals com l'aptitud dels aprenents o l'estil del/de la mestre/a.Els resultats mostren un cert nombre de similituds discursives entre AICLE i EFL donat que ambdós enfocaments tenen lloc en el context-classe amb unes característiques ben definides. Tal com apunta la recerca realitzada en aquest camp, la instrucció AICLE reuneix un seguit de condicions idònies per un major desenvolupament dels nivells de llengua anglesa més enllà de les classes ‘tradicionals’ d’anglès. Malgrat això, aquest estudi sembla indicar que el potencial d'AICLE pel que fa a facilitar una exposició rica a l’anglès i una producció oral significativa no s’explota degudament. En aquest sentit, els resultats d’aquest estudi poden contribuir a la formació dels futurs professors d'AICLE si es busca l’assoliment d’una complementarietat d’ambdós contextos amb l’objectiu últim de millorar els nivells de domini de la llengua anglesa.

Content and Language Integration as a part of a degree reform at Tampere University of Technology

Tampere University of Technology is undergoing a degree reform that started in 2013. One of the major changes in the reform was the integration of compulsory Finnish, Swedish and English language courses to substance courses at the bachelor level. The integration of content and language courses aims at higher quality language learning, more fluency in studies, and increased motivation toward language studies. In addition, integration is an opportunity to optimize the use of resources and to offer courses that are more tailored to the students' field of study and to the skills needed in working life. The reform also aims to increase and develop co-operation between different departments at the university and to develop scientific follow up. This paper gives an overview of the integration process conducted at TUT and gives examples of adjunct CLIL implementations in three different languages.

Learning the ropes and embracing the rules: CFSP institutions as arenas for learning and strategic socialisation

The aim of this article is to analyse those situations in which learning and socialisation take place within the context of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), in particular, at the level of experts in the Council Working Groups. Learning can explain the institutional development of CFSP and changes in the foreign policies of the Member States. Some scope conditions for learning and channels of institutionalisation are identified. Socialisation, resulting from learning within a group, is perceived as a strategic action by reflective actors. National diplomats, once they arrive in Brussels, learn the new code of conduct of their Working Groups. They are embedded in two environments and faced with two logics: the European one in the Council and the national one in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA). The empirical evidence supports the argument that neither rational nor sociological approaches alone can account for these processes.

Learning from Shocks and the Decision to Open

Two claims pervade the literature on the political economy of market reforms: that economic crises cause reforms; and that crises matter because they bring into question the validity of the economic model held to be responsible for them. Economic crises are said to spur a process of learning that is conducive to the abandonment of failing models and to the adoption of successful models. But although these claims have become the conventional wisdom, they have been hardly tested empirically due to the lack of agreement on what constitutes a crisis and to difficulties in measuring learning from them. I propose a model of rational learning from experience and apply it to the decision to open the economy. Using data from 1964 through 1990, I show that learning from the 1982 debt crisis was relevant to the first wave of adoption of an export promotion strategy, but learning was conditional on the high variability of economic outcomes in countries that opened up to trade. Learning was also symbolic in that the sheer number of other countries that liberalized was a more important driver of others’ decisions to follow suit.

Interoperability issues between learning object repositories and metadata harvesters

In this paper we describe an open learning object repository on Statistics based on DSpace which contains true learning objects, that is, exercises, equations, data sets, etc. This repository is part of a large project intended to promote the use of learning object repositories as part of the learning process in virtual learning environments. This involves the creation of a new user interface that provides users with additional services such as resource rating, commenting and so. Both aspects make traditional metadata schemes such as Dublin Core to be inadequate, as there are resources with no title or author, for instance, as those fields are not used by learners to browse and search for learning resources in the repository. Therefore, exporting OAI-PMH compliant records using OAI-DC is not possible, thus limiting the visibility of the learning objects in the repository outside the institution. We propose an architecture based on ontologies and the use of extended metadata records for both storing and refactoring such descriptions.

Gènere i bilingüisme: connectant experiències i teories. Introductory paper in Santaemilia, José, Patricia Bou, Sergio Maruenda i Gora Zaragoza International Perspectives on Gender and Language

Peer-reviewed

Judges' cognition and market order

We argue that during the crystallization of common and civil law in the 19th century, the optimal degree of discretion in judicial rulemaking, albeit influenced by the comparative advantages of both legislative and judicial rulemaking, was mainly determined by the anti-market biases of the judiciary. The different degrees of judicial discretion adopted in both legal traditions were thus optimally adapted to different circumstances, mainly rooted in the unique, market-friendly, evolutionary transition enjoyed by English common law as opposed to the revolutionary environment of the civil law. On the Continent, constraining judicial discretion was essential for enforcing freedom of contract and establishing a market economy. The ongoing debasement of pro-market fundamentals in both branches of the Western legal system is explained from this perspective as a consequence of increased perceptions of exogenous risks and changes in the political system, which favored the adoption of sharing solutions and removed the cognitive advantage of parliaments and political leaders.

Breaking down the barriers between literature and language in the EFL classroom

Aquest treball gira entorn la qüestió de l’ús que es fa de la literatura com a medi per a l’ensenyament de l’anglès com a segona llengua. En primer lloc, dibuixa el marc de la situació actual on hi ha una clara separació entre llengua i literatura com a assignatures diferenciades i fa un repàs de les diferents metodologies que al llarg de la historia han utilitzat la literatura com a eina d’aprenentatge de la llengua. Segonament, el treball explica el desenvolupament i posada en pràctica d’una unitat didàctica completa per a alumnes de segon de batxillerat, que te la literatura con a punt de sortida. El treball mira de concloure com la utilització de la literatura exerceix un poder de motivació clau en els alumnes i aporta un context que dona sentit i riquesa a l’ensenyament de la llengua. Per últim, el treball fa un recull de les opinions de professors d’anglès de Catalunya al respecte d’aquest tema, a través d’un qüestionari que 66 professors associats a l’APAC (Associació de Professors d’Anglès de Catalunya) van respondre de manera desinteressada.

Remote collaborative multi-user informal learning experiences: design and evaluation

This paper presents a customizable system used to develop a collaborative multi-user problem solving game. It addresses the increasing demand for appealing informal learning experiences in museum-like settings. The system facilitates remote collaboration by allowing groups of learners tocommunicate through a videoconferencing system and by allowing them to simultaneously interact through a shared multi-touch interactive surface. A user study with 20 user groups indicates that the game facilitates collaboration between local and remote groups of learners. The videoconference and multitouch surface acted as communication channels, attracted students’ interest, facilitated engagement, and promoted inter- and intra-group collaboration—favoring intra-group collaboration. Our findings suggest that augmentingvideoconferencing systems with a shared multitouch space offers newpossibilities and scenarios for remote collaborative environments and collaborative learning.

Analysing Professional Discourse in Interactive Learning: Integrating Historical and Situational Perspectives

Peer-reviewed

Apertium Advanced Web Interface : A first step towards interactivity and language tools convergence

This documents sums up a projectaimed at building a new web interfaceto the Apertium machine translationplatform, including pre-editing andpost-editing environments. It containsa description of the accomplished workon this project, as well as an overviewof possible evolutions.

Social Networks for learning : wikis, blogs and tagging in education

Fast developments in information and communications technologies and changes in the behaviour of learners demand educational institutions to continuously evaluate their pedagogical approaches to the learning and teaching process, both in face-to-face and virtual classrooms.

Language Learning in Task Management and Task Accomplishment

In this paper we study student interaction in English and Swedish courses at a Finnish university. We focus on language choices made in task-related activities in small group interaction. Our research interests arose from the change in the teaching curriculum, in which content and language courses were integrated at Tampere University of Technology in 2013. Using conversation analysis, we analysed groups of 4-5 students who worked collaboratively on a task via a video conference programme. The results show how language alternation has different functions in 1) situations where students orient to managing the task, e.g., in transitions into task, or where they orient to technical problems, and 2) situations where students accomplish the task. With the results, we aim to show how language alternation can provide interactional opportunities for language learning. The findings will be useful in designing tasks in the future.