Teaching square roots: conceptual complexity in mathematics language

The article presents strategies for communicating the concept of square roots to limited English-proficient students. Instead of using mathematical terminology, mathematics teachers could communicate the concept of square roots by integrating the literal concept of square to the actual meaning of a square root. Such approach addresses the learning difficulty experienced by limited English proficient students who tend to associate square roots to geometric concepts. Several strategies for illustrating the concept of a square root using square figures are presented.

Complexity of English language learners’ autonomy, motivation and self

Complexity of English language learners' autonomy, motivation and sense of self in Vietnamese context.

Conceptual complexity and apparent contradictions in mathematics language

The article explores the conceptual complexity and apparent contradictions in the language of mathematics and suggests ways to handle these problems. Mathematics, as described the author, is a formal, artificially constructed language. One problem arises from the changes of gradient and rates of change of gradient, continuous functions. Conceptual conflicts also arise when least upperbounds and greatest lower-bounds in discussing sequences and series, convergence and limits are considered.

The use and misuse of religious language: Zionism and the Palestinians

Every discipline which deals with the land question in Canaan-Palestine- Israel is afflicted by the problem of specialisation. The political scientist and historian usually discuss the issue of land in Israel purely in terms of interethnic and international relations, biblical scholars concentrate on the historical and archaeological question with virtually no reference to ethics, and scholars of human rights usually evade the question of God. What follows is an attempt, through theology and political history, to understand the history of the Israel-Palestine land question in a way which respects the complexity of the question. From a scrutiny of the language used in the Bible to the development of political Zionism from the late 19th century it is possible to see the way in which a secular movement mobilised the figurative language of religion into a literal 'title deed' to the land of Palestine signed by God.

Feminine transports and transformations : textual performances of Australian women convicts and emigrants from 1788 to 1850

While scholars have critiqued early representations of the white colonial female in the form of the novel, short story, or historical narrative, analyses of poetry tend to be located only on that produced in Australia and often in light of a nascent national identity. This article examines how poetic renditions of the desolate woman might be viewed as part of imperialism's mythologising process, displacing more worrying versions of womanhood in relation to the new colonies. While social anxieties over the identity of the white colonial female would result in highly controlled productions of the female convict and female emigrant, this article demonstrates how they also prove unstable and point to a disruptive reality beyond language.

English language reform and the process of democratic change

Malaysian society has and is undergoing considerable social, political, economic and educational change. Scholars point to the forces of globalization and the needs to be able to meet the challenges of globalization as the central driver of language policy. Commentators, academics and many in the general public have focused on the need for Malaysia to adapt to globalization and the importance of English to this process given the needs and characteristic of the knowledge economy. However, there appears to be less recognition of the way such a change in Malaysian language policy needs to be engaged in a dynamically shifting knowledge society and developing public sphere. Language is a social act and the debate over language and its place and role in society is therefore a debate over the nature and quality of social interaction. Debate over language is thus inherently political. Due to the growth and development of an interactive and engaged public sphere and knowledge society in Malaysia, there is a need to approach to the idea of engaging English that grasps the plurality and complexity of its role in the world. The political approach to engaging English in Malaysia needs to engage democratic deliberation in a society that is increasingly fragmented but also showing signs of developing an active public sphere not beholden to top down authority. Disagreement over language and the way the debate is theorized hides from view the possibility of points of consensus on the issue of English language and Malaysian education. Establishing overlapping consensus through public deliberation and consultation is a necessary precondition to effective language policy in contemporary Malaysia. Failure to understand this only leads to policy paralysis.

Teacher education and critical inquiry : the use of activity theory in exploring alternative understandings of language and literacy

This paper explores the challenges of espousing a critical pedagogy within the managerial climate that presently shapes teacher education. It argues that current discourses of professionalism are incommensurate with a view of literacy as social practice and that they disregard complex semiotic ecologies in which both school and university students operate. Graduate teachers are constructed as the ‘providers’ of decontextualised literacy skills to school students whose existing communication networks are ignored. Rejecting this narrow view of professional practice, we draw on activity theory to analyse the social configuration of tertiary students’ identities and the textual resources that mediate their professional learning. This kind of research is needed to reveal the contradictions within and between activity systems in which tertiary students participate as well as to construct possible solutions to the contradictions identified.

Teacher education and critical inquiry : the use of activity theory in exploring alternative understandings of language and literacy

This article explores the challenges of espousing a critical pedagogy within the managerial climate that presently shapes teacher education. Current discourses of professionalism are incommensurate with an understanding of the way that literacy practices are grounded in the social worlds in which both school and university students operate. Such discourses construct graduate teachers as the providers of decontextualised literacy skills to school students whose existing communication networks are ignored. We argue that an alternative understanding of professional practice can be developed by focusing on the textual resources university students use to mediate their learning, and by locating their emerging professional identities within the activity systems and meaning-making practices in which they participate.

Travellers’ tales : the expatriate english language teacher in the new global culture

Most of the research into ELT has focused on its linguistic and methodological aspects, which are based on Western scientific traditions. The contributions and experiences of English language teachers themselves, especially their work in overseas contexts, have frequently been overlooked. This volume aims to document the complexity of ELT as 'work' in new global economic and cultural conditions, and to explore how this complexity is realised in the everyday experiences of ELT teachers. The development of ELT from the colonial experience to its current status as a global commodity is explored; ELT is then situated in the discourses of globalisation, specifically within Appadurai's theorisation of global flows of people, images, ideas, technology and money, or scapes. Within this framework, narratives are constructed from the experiences of Native-speaking English teachers. These reveal much about the personal, pedagogical and cultural dimensions of ELT work in non-Centre countries, and will contribute to a greater understanding of the intercultural dimensions of ELT for all those who work in it, and in related educational fields.

Is the frame broken? Seeking new metaphors for textual study in English

This article draws from a doctoral study of how female teachers design English curriculum around girls’ popular culture in a contemporary coeducational secondary setting and focuses on how English teachers contemplate the study of texts in the space of school-based curriculum planning. The article presents an argument for reflexivity around how we create both texts and identity through curriculum design; it advocates the pursuit of new metaphors for contemplating the study of text that might challenge models of education as delivery in a neoliberal imaginary, where curriculum design is depicted as the anonymous and rational articulation of aims and pedagogy to achieve outcomes.

A visual language and environment for enterprise system modelling and automation

Objective: We want to support enterprise service modelling and generation using a more end user-friendly metaphor than current approaches, which fail to scale to large organisations with key issues of "cobweb" and "labyrinth" problems and large numbers of hidden dependencies. Method: We present and evaluate an integrated visual approach for business process modelling using a novel tree-based overlay structure that effectively mitigate complexity problems. A tree-overlay based visual notation (EML) and its integrated support environment (MaramaEML) supplement and integrate with existing solutions. Complex business architectures are represented as service trees and business processes are modelled as process overlay sequences on the service trees. Results: MaramaEML integrates EML and BPMN to provide complementary, high-level business service modelling and supports automatic BPEL code generation from the graphical representations to realise web services implementing the specified processes. It facilitates generated service validation using an integrated LTSA checker and provides a distortion-based fisheye and zooming function to enhance complex diagram navigation. Evaluations of EML show its effectiveness. Conclusions: We have successfully developed and evaluated a novel tree-based metaphor for business process modelling and enterprise service generation. Practice implications: a more user-friendly modelling approach and support tool for business end users.

Differentiating sub-groups of online depression-related communities using textual cues

Depression is a highly prevalent mental illness and is a comorbidity of other mental and behavioural disorders. The Internet allows individuals who are depressed or caring for those who are depressed, to connect with others via online communities; however, the characteristics of these online conversations and the language styles of those interested in depression have not yet been fully explored. This work aims to explore the textual cues of online communities interested in depression. A random sample of 5,000 blog posts was crawled. Five groupings were identified: depression, bipolar, self-harm, grief, and suicide. Independent variables included psycholinguistic processes and content topics extracted from the posts. Machine learning techniques were used to discriminate messages posted in the depression sub-group from the others.Good predictive validity in depression classification using topics and psycholinguistic clues as features was found. Clear discrimination between writing styles and content, with good predictive power is an important step in understanding social media and its use in mental health.

The relation between receptive grammar and procedural, declarative, and working memory in specific language impairment

What memory systems underlie grammar in children, and do these differ between typically developing (TD) children and children with specific language impairment (SLI)? Whilst there is substantial evidence linking certain memory deficits to the language problems in children with SLI, few studies have investigated multiple memory systems simultaneously, examining not only possible memory deficits but also memory abilities that may play a compensatory role. This study examined the extent to which procedural, declarative, and working memory abilities predict receptive grammar in 45 primary school aged children with SLI (30 males, 15 females) and 46 TD children (30 males, 16 females), both on average 9;10 years of age. Regression analyses probed measures of all three memory systems simultaneously as potential predictors of receptive grammar. The model was significant, explaining 51.6% of the variance. There was a significant main effect of learning in procedural memory and a significant group × procedural learning interaction. Further investigation of the interaction revealed that procedural learning predicted grammar in TD but not in children with SLI. Indeed, procedural learning was the only predictor of grammar in TD. In contrast, only learning in declarative memory significantly predicted grammar in SLI. Thus, different memory systems are associated with receptive grammar abilities in children with SLI and their TD peers. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate a significant group by memory system interaction in predicting grammar in children with SLI and their TD peers. In line with Ullman's Declarative/Procedural model of language and procedural deficit hypothesis of SLI, variability in understanding sentences of varying grammatical complexity appears to be associated with variability in procedural memory abilities in TD children, but with declarative memory, as an apparent compensatory mechanism, in children with SLI.

What did they expect? Exploring a link between students’ expectations, attendance and attrition on English language enhancement courses

This article reports on and discusses the findings of an investigationcarried out to explore the expectations of an English language enhancementcourse (ELEC) held by a group of undergraduate students at anAustralian university. For the study, a mixed-methods approach was utilised,with two instruments: a survey with a combination of closed- andopen-ended questions and semi-structured interviews. The research wasguided by the following three questions: (1) What do the students expectto learn on the course? (2) How are they developing their expectations?(3) Are the students’ expectations being met? The literature concerningstudent expectations foregrounds the complexity and multi-faceted natureof the concept, the satisfaction of which can impact on student engagement,satisfaction, performance, retention and attrition. Findings showthat the participants’ expectations of the course content and teachingstaff were largely met; nonetheless, a lack of class attendance was notedthroughout. Expectations were reported to have been developed largelythrough consultation with previous students of the course (43 per cent)and information materials provided by the university (42 per cent). Thearticle concludes with a discussion regarding the implications of thefindings for universities and education providers both in Australia andabroad.